Yesterday I mused in re David Cahn, the antiquities dealer who had to cough up the lekythos:

Here’s the dealer in question’s website, btw. I wonder how much of that treasure is loot.

Thanks to the prodigious memory of Looting Matters’ David Gill, my question is no longer idle.

From an article last June:

The marble statue of god Apollo, discovered in the late 19th century in the town of Gortyna in Crete, was sought by Greece ever since it was reported stolen in 1991 together with nine other items.

It was not until March this year that Interpol informed Athens it had tracked it down in Berne.

Voulgarakis said Swiss arts dealer David Cahn, who had the statue in his possession, returned it unconditionally after a brief legal dispute.

I’ll just bet he did. In case his record over the past year or so didn’t speak loud and clear, I found another interesting tidbit amongst the braggadocio on his website.

He also contributed to the catalogue of the exhibition “Glories of the Past: Ancient Art from the Shelby White and Leon Levy Collection” held at the Metropolitan Museum of New York in 1990.

Shelby White has recently had to return ten of those Glories of the Past to Italy because, wouldn’t ya know, they were looted and illegally exported. That was just the comprise, too. Italy’s original request has twenty items on it, and I seriously doubt the ten artifacts that White refused to return had legitimate provenances either.

David Cahn has a degree in Classical Archaeology. There isn’t a chance in hell he didn’t realize the muck he was wallowing in. He, much like the rest of his colleagues and clients, simply chose to look the other way until the law forced them to do otherwise.