# Statue of a Victorious Youth > Unidentified Greek bronze caster; attributed by some scholars to Lysippos of Sikyon - About 300-100 BC > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/greek-bronze-caster-victorious-youth/getty-bronze-victorious-youth/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-13 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Unidentified Greek bronze caster; attributed by some scholars to Lysippos of Sikyon - **Date:** About 300-100 BC - **Medium:** Bronze, hollow cast by the lost-wax process; eyes originally inlaid with coloured stone or glass paste; nipples inlaid with copper - **Dimensions:** About 1.52 m high as it survives; the lower legs and feet are lost - **Object type:** Antiquity - **Period:** Greek, Hellenistic - **Current location:** J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Villa, Los Angeles, object number 77.AB.30, Gallery 111, The Hellenistic World - **Attribution:** disputed ## Summary One of a very small number of life-size Greek bronzes to survive from antiquity, pulled out of the Adriatic in the summer of 1964 in the nets of a fishing boat working out of Fano. The fishermen were paid about 5,600 dollars. The statue was hidden in a field and then, by several accounts, in a priest's house, and it left Italy. In 1977 the J. Paul Getty Trust bought it for 3.95 million dollars from a Luxembourg company, and it has been in Los Angeles ever since.Everything that has happened since turns on one sentence in an Italian criminal judgment. On 8 November 1970 the Court of Appeal in Rome quashed the convictions of the fishermen and the dealer Giacomo Barbetti because the prosecution had not established that the statue was found in Italian waters. That is a finding about the state of the evidence, not a declaration of clean title, and the Getty treated it as the latter. In May 2024 the European Court of Human Rights said so in terms, holding that relying on an acquittal for want of proof fell short of the diligence required and that the Getty had implicitly accepted the risk of confiscation without compensation.Italian courts ordered the bronze forfeited in 2010, again in 2012, again on 8 June 2018 at Pesaro, and the Court of Cassation rejected the final appeal. The European Court found no violation of the Getty's property rights in that order. None of it has moved the statue. A forfeiture order is not a repatriation and not a conviction; enforcement depends on a request to the United States Attorney General made in 2019 under the mutual legal assistance treaty, which was still pending when the Strasbourg court gave judgment. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **c. 300-100 BC** Made in the Greek world, patron and location unknown `[unknown]` (origin) The holding museum states that the origin of the statue is unknown and offers Olympia or the victorious athlete's home town as possibilities. No findspot, sanctuary, base or inscription connects the figure to any place. The attribution to Lysippos of Sikyon is a scholarly proposal that the museum does not adopt in its own record. - **1st century BC or AD-1964** Lost at sea `[unknown]` (gap) THE UNGRADED LINK. The museum's own reconstruction is that Romans carried the statue off during the first century BC or AD and that the ship transporting it foundered. There is no wreck excavation, no cargo assemblage and no recorded position, because the statue was not raised by archaeologists. Whether the point at which it was raised lay inside Italian territorial waters is the single unresolved question on which the entire legal history depends, and it has never been established by any court. - **1964** Crew of the fishing trawler Ferruccio Ferri, Fano `[documented]` (discovery) Netted in the summer of 1964 off Fano on the Adriatic coast. Italian art dealers paid the fishermen about 5,600 dollars. The find was not declared to the Italian authorities. - **1964-c. 1965** Giacomo Barbetti and associates `[documented]` (purchase and concealment) The dealer Giacomo Barbetti bought the statue and concealed it, by the accounts on record first in a cabbage field and afterwards in a priest's house, one widely repeated version placing it in a bathtub. He then sold it on, in the Geneva Art-Law Centre chronology to an unidentified buyer in Milan, after which it changed hands more than once. - **1966-1970** Subject of Italian criminal proceedings `[documented]` (litigation) The fishermen, Barbetti and others were charged under Article 67 of Law No. 1089 of 1 June 1939 with handling stolen property. On 8 November 1970 the Court of Appeal in Rome quashed the convictions, holding that the prosecution had not established that the statue was found in Italian waters or that it was of artistic and archaeological interest. This is an acquittal for insufficiency of proof and is not a finding of clean title; the European Court of Human Rights so held in 2024. - **1972-1974** Heinz Herzer, Munich `[disputed]` (trade) The statue surfaced in 1972 at the Munich premises of the dealer Heinz Herzer, who sold it to Artemis in 1974 on the Geneva Art-Law Centre chronology. Wikipedia reverses the order, having the object emerge under Artemis ownership in 1971 and be stored with Herzer. Graded disputed because the two published sequences conflict on who held title when. - **1974-1977** Artemis, a Luxembourg corporation `[documented]` (ownership) Artemis sold the statue to the J. Paul Getty Trust in 1977. Interpol informed the Italian authorities of the sale in the same year, so the source state had contemporaneous notice of the transaction. - **1977-present** J. Paul Getty Trust, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles `[documented]` (purchase) Purchased in 1977 for 3.95 million dollars. On public display from 1978. Italy's Minister of Cultural Heritage requested its return in 1989 and the Getty declined. The statue was excluded from the 2007 agreement under which the Getty returned forty objects to Italy. It remains at the Getty Villa as object 77.AB.30. - **2010-present** Declared property of the Italian State by forfeiture order; possession unchanged `[documented]` (forfeiture) Forfeiture ordered by the pre-trial judge at the Tribunal of Pesaro on 10 February 2010; remitted by the Court of Cassation on 18 January 2011; upheld 3 May 2012; constitutional questions referred 10 June 2014 and the relevant Code of Criminal Procedure articles held unconstitutional on 15 June 2015; confirmed after public hearing at Pesaro on 8 June 2018; final appeal rejected by the Court of Cassation, dated 2 January 2019 by the Geneva Art-Law Centre and November 2018 by Wikipedia. Italy asked the United States Attorney General to enforce the order in 2019 under the mutual legal assistance treaty; the request was recorded as still pending in 2024. The statue has not moved. - **2024-present** Position unaltered by the European Court of Human Rights `[documented]` (judgment) The J. Paul Getty Trust and Others v. Italy, application no. 35271/19, lodged 28 June 2019. First Section of the European Court of Human Rights, deliberated 19 March 2024, judgment 2 May 2024, 92 pages: no violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, reported as unanimous on the operative holding. The Court held the confiscation justified because the Getty's acquisition conduct was negligent and it had implicitly accepted the risk of confiscation without compensation. Judge Wojtyczek gave a separate opinion, described as partly dissenting and partly concurring in one account and as a dissent in another. The judgment does not order the statue's return; it decides only that Italy's order does not breach the Convention. ## Auction results Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so. - **** , - This statue has never been sold at public auction and has no hammer price. Every figure attached to it is a private transaction: about 5,600 dollars paid to the fishermen by dealers in 1964, and 3.95 million dollars paid by the J. Paul Getty Trust to the Luxembourg corporation Artemis in 1977, a sale reported to the Italian authorities by Interpol in the year it took place. No premium applies to either, because neither was an auction, and no published estimate exists. ## Exhibitions - Placed on public display after acquisition, J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, 1978 - Permanent display, Gallery 111, The Hellenistic World, Getty Villa, Los Angeles, 2026 ## Open questions - Was the statue raised inside Italian territorial waters? Sixty years of proceedings have not established it. The 1970 Italian acquittal found only that the prosecution had failed to prove it, which is not a finding that the opposite is true. - Who was the Milan buyer, and who held the statue between about 1965 and 1972? The chain between Barbetti's sale and the appearance at Herzer's premises in Munich is described in the sources as multiple changes of hand with no names. - Did Herzer sell to Artemis in 1974, or did Artemis already own the statue in 1971 with Herzer holding it? The Geneva Art-Law Centre and Wikipedia give incompatible sequences. - What is the date of the final Court of Cassation decision? It is given as 2 January 2019 by the Geneva Art-Law Centre and as November 2018 by Wikipedia. Both may refer to the same act at different procedural stages, but neither source states which. - Will the United States act on Italy's 2019 mutual legal assistance request? It was still pending when the European Court ruled in May 2024. No American court has ruled on the forfeiture order. - Is the attribution to Lysippos sustainable? The holding museum does not make it. Italian officials have publicly questioned it while Italy's own campaign for the statue's return trades on it. - Where are the lower legs and feet? No account consulted records whether they were lost in antiquity, lost in the sea, or separated after 1964. - What did the Getty's 1977 diligence file actually contain? The European Court found reliance on vendor-supplied experts and on the 1970 acquittal, but the file itself has not been published. - How should Judge Wojtyczek's separate opinion be classified? The Center for Art Law describes it as partly dissenting and partly concurring; ARCA reports the ruling as unanimous with a dissenting opinion. The judgment text itself could not be retrieved for this record. ## Sources - [1] Art-Law Centre, University of Geneva, ArThemis platform, case note 'Victorious Youth - Italy v. J. Paul Getty Museum'. Chronology of the 1964 find, the 1966-1970 criminal proceedings and the 8 November 1970 Rome Court of Appeal judgment, the Munich and Artemis transfers, the 1977 sale price, the 2007 agreement and the forfeiture orders of 2010, 2012, 2018 and the final Cassation decision, together with the legal basis relied on by each side. - [2] Center for Art Law, 'Case Review: Getty v. Italy (2024)'. The European Court of Human Rights judgment of 2 May 2024 in application no. 35271/19: the holding on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, the four findings on the Getty's diligence, the treatment of the 1970 acquittal, the UNESCO and UNIDROIT compensation framework, Judge Wojtyczek's separate opinion, and the pending mutual legal assistance request. - [3] Wikipedia, 'Victorious Youth'. Tertiary source, used for the trawler Ferruccio Ferri, the 5,600 dollars paid to the fishermen, the concealment accounts, the surviving height and the alternative Artemis chronology. Flagged for replacement with the Getty's published provenance and the Pesaro and Cassation judgments themselves. - [4] J. Paul Getty Museum object record for Statue of a Victorious Youth, 77.AB.30, quoted verbatim on the Wikimedia Commons page for the museum's own CC0 photograph, which also carries the object number, the gallery, the source link to getty.edu and the licence. Licence verified per file from the Commons API extmetadata LicenseShortName. - [5] ARCAblog, Association for Research into Crimes against Art, report of the European Court of Human Rights decision of 2 May 2024. The First Section composition, the deliberation of 19 March 2024, the 92-page length, the unanimous operative holding, Judge Wojtyczek's separate opinion, the Italian findings on cultural heritage and customs law and the absence of an export licence, and the Trust's stated concern about recognition and enforcement of the confiscation in the United States. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.