# Cult Statue of a Goddess > Unknown sculptor, western Greek workshop - c. 425-400 BC > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/unknown-western-greek-sculptor/morgantina-cult-statue-of-a-goddess/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-09-06 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Unknown sculptor, western Greek workshop - **Date:** c. 425-400 BC - **Medium:** Pseudo-acrolithic: body in Sicilian limestone, head and exposed flesh in Parian marble - **Dimensions:** Approximately 220 x 80 cm; about seven feet tall and reported at some 1,300 pounds - **Object type:** Antiquity - **Period:** Greek, high Classical, Sicily - **Current location:** Museo Archeologico Regionale di Aidone, Aidone, Sicily - **Attribution:** unknown ## Summary A seven-foot cult statue of the last quarter of the fifth century BC, built out of two materials: a body of Sicilian limestone with the head, arms and feet worked in imported Parian marble. It is one of very few pieces of high Classical sculpture to survive anywhere, and the only one of its kind in Italy. Nobody knows which goddess it represents.It was dug out of the sanctuary at contrada San Francesco Bisconti at Morgantina, in central Sicily, in 1979, cut into pieces and moved. In 1986 the Lugano tobacconist Renzo Canavesi sold it to the London dealer Robin Symes for 400,000 dollars. On 25 July 1988 the J. Paul Getty Museum bought it from Symes for 18 million dollars, which remains among the largest sums ever paid for an antiquity. Within the same month Thomas Hoving, the former director of the Metropolitan Museum, said publicly that he knew it had come from a clandestine excavation at Morgantina.The decisive evidence was in the stone. Petrographic analysis established that the limestone came from the Hyblaean quarries of southeastern Sicily. The Getty refused to give the statue up for nineteen years. What eventually moved it was not a court but a bargain: the Rome investigations into the Medici network, the criminal prosecution of the Getty's own antiquities curator Marion True, and an agreement signed with the Italian Ministry of Culture in September 2007 under which forty objects went back. True was never convicted of anything, in Italy or in Greece; both prosecutions ended when the limitation periods expired, the Italian one on 13 October 2010. The statue reached Italy on 17 March 2011 and went on show in a former Capuchin monastery in a hill town of six thousand people, where about seventeen thousand people a year see it. At the Getty Villa it had been seen by about four hundred thousand. ## 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. 425-400 BC** Made for a sanctuary in Greek Sicily; commissioning body unrecorded `[documented]` (origin) Dated on style to the last quarter of the fifth century BC. The body was carved from local Sicilian limestone and the flesh parts from imported Parian marble, a pseudo-acrolithic technique already used in Sicily for the metopes of Temple E at Selinunte. The back is fully worked, which indicates the figure was meant to be seen in the round on a pedestal rather than set against a wall. - **-1979** Buried at Morgantina; exact findspot never established `[unknown]` (gap) Italian accounts place the clandestine excavation at contrada San Francesco Bisconti at Morgantina in 1979. Local report in Aidone attributes the discovery to two shepherd brothers working the eastern flank of the site, where a sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone has been excavated. Nobody has ever confirmed it. The prosecutor who investigated the case in the 1990s, Silvio Raffiotta, said in 2011 that it was time for them to speak and that there was no longer any risk in doing so. - **1979-1986** Renzo Canavesi, tobacconist, Chiasso and Lugano `[disputed]` (removal and export) Italian accounts state that the statue was cut into pieces and exported to Switzerland, and that Canavesi held it before selling it on. Canavesi later maintained that his family had owned the statue since the 1930s. No document supporting that claim has been produced in any source consulted. - **1986-1988** Robin Symes, London `[disputed]` (sale) Canavesi is reported to have sold the statue to Symes for 400,000 dollars. Symes moved it to his London premises and, on the Italian account, tried without success to place it with the best-known American galleries before offering it to the Getty. Symes was among the principal conduits in the network later exposed by the Rome investigations. - **25 July 1988-March 2011** The J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu `[documented]` (purchase) Bought for 18 million dollars, on the recommendation of the antiquities curator Marion True, who proposed the identification as Aphrodite. Displayed at the Getty Villa, where it was seen by some 400,000 visitors a year and, by the account of the reporters who covered the case, was virtually ignored by scholars for twenty-two years because of the controversy around it. - **1988-2007** Subject of an Italian claim; possession unchanged `[documented]` (claim) Thomas Hoving stated publicly in the month of the purchase that he knew the statue had come from a clandestine excavation at Morgantina. The Tribunale di Enna opened an investigation, and petrographic analysis of the limestone body established a Sicilian origin. The Getty declined to give the statue up. - **September 2007-17 March 2011** Agreed for transfer to the Italian Republic; possession with the Getty pending shipment `[documented]` (negotiated agreement) The Getty signed an agreement with the Italian Ministry of Culture in Rome under which forty of forty-six disputed objects would return, this statue in 2010. English-language accounts date the signature to 26 September 2007 and Italian accounts to 25 September 2007, when the museum's director Michael Brand signed for the transfer. - **17 March 2011-present** Italian Republic; Museo Archeologico Regionale di Aidone `[documented]` (return) The statue arrived in Italy on 17 March 2011 and went on display at Aidone from 17 May 2011, in a museum housed in a seventeenth-century Capuchin monastery that holds about 150 visitors at a time. The inauguration was attended by two Getty officials, hundreds of townspeople, two bands and a children's choir; a souvenir shop opposite sold Aphrodite postcards, t-shirts and cigarette trays. ## Auction results Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so. - **** , - This statue has never been offered at auction and has no hammer price. Every figure attached to it is a private transaction: 400,000 dollars reported for the sale from Canavesi to Robin Symes in 1986, and 18 million dollars paid by the J. Paul Getty Museum to Symes on 25 July 1988. Neither carries a premium, an estimate or an underbidder, and the 18 million is the museum's purchase price rather than a market valuation. A separate figure is not a price at all: the Tribunale di Enna's award against Canavesi in 2001 of 40 billion lire, of which 20 billion was the assessed value of the statue and 20 billion moral damages to the Italian state. ## Open questions - Which goddess is she? Aphrodite was the Getty's identification, proposed by Marion True. Katerina Greco argues Demeter; Clemente Marconi argues Persephone; the Italian reading has her as Demeter with a lost torch. No attribute survives to settle it. - Does the marble head belong to the limestone body? The join has been described as slightly awkward, and the question of whether head and body were together when they came out of the ground has never been answered publicly. - Where exactly at Morgantina was she found? The contrada is named in Italian accounts and the eastern flank sanctuary is the local report, but no excavator has been shown the spot. If it were identified the area could be re-excavated. - Did the 2001 conviction of Renzo Canavesi survive appeal? No appellate outcome has been located in the sources consulted, and an Italian first-instance conviction is not final. Nor has any source consulted recorded the 40 billion lire ever being paid. - Where was the statue between 1979 and 1986, and who cut it up? The Italian account has it exported to Switzerland in pieces; the intermediate holders are not named. A separate English-language account (the Trafficking Culture research project, citing Felch and Frammolino's book Chasing Aphrodite) gives the excavation year as 1977 or 1978 rather than 1979, and names a Sicilian dealer, Orazio di Simone, as an intermediate holder before Canavesi, and a local dealer, Giuseppe Mascara, whose testimony placed the find alongside three marble heads and silver vessels. This record has not fetched Chasing Aphrodite itself to adjudicate the date conflict or confirm these names, and does not add them to the graded provenance chain on that basis alone; flagged here for the next re-verification pass. - What did Canavesi's family-ownership claim rest on? He maintained the statue had been in his family since the 1930s and no supporting document has been produced in any account consulted. - Are the missing fragments extant? Whatever the figure held is gone, along with the left arm. Nothing in the sources consulted says whether these were lost in antiquity, destroyed in 1979, or are still in circulation. - RESOLVED September 2026: Clemente Marconi's study was published, and argues for Persephone. Per Marconi's own publications list (Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei): 'L'identificazione della Dea di Morgantina', Prospettiva 141-142 (2011): 2-31; a shorter entry 'The Goddess from Morgantina' in Sicily: Art and Invention between Greece and Rome, eds. Lyons, Bennett and Marconi (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2013), p. 60; and the full English study 'The Goddess from Morgantina', Antike Plastik 31 (2016): 1-31. None of the three has been fetched and read in full by this record; the Persephone conclusion is taken from the article titles, the CV entries themselves, and a third-party abstract, not from the primary text. - What are the visitor numbers at Aidone now? The figure of about 17,000 a year dates from 2011, when the statue had just arrived. ## Sources - [1] Jason Felch, 'Chasing Persephone?', Chasing Aphrodite, 28 May 2011, reproducing his Los Angeles Times report from Aidone. Source for the 1988 purchase at 18 million dollars, the late-1970s illegal excavation at Morgantina, the identification debate and the positions of Katerina Greco and Clemente Marconi, the Sicilian rebranding of the statue as the goddess, the Phidian reference in the drapery, the visitor figures of about 17,000 at Aidone against about 400,000 at the Getty, the two shepherd brothers and the eastern-flank sanctuary, Silvio Raffiotta's statement, Flavia Zisa's statement, and the observation that the statue was virtually ignored by scholars for twenty-two years. - [2] Wikipedia (Italian), 'Dea di Morgantina'. TERTIARY, but the fullest Italian-language account and cited to Serena Raffiotta's 'La Venere di Morgantina: storia di un recupero' and to Tsao Cevoli. Used for the 1979 looting at contrada San Francesco Bisconti, the cutting into pieces and export to Switzerland in 1986, Renzo Canavesi of Lugano and the 400,000 dollar sale to Robin Symes, the purchase date of 25 July 1988, Thomas Hoving's public statement, the petrographic analysis, the Tribunale di Enna judgment of 5 March 2001 with its two-year sentence and 40 billion lire award split between value and moral damages, Michael Brand's signature in September 2007, the return on 17 March 2011 and the display from 17 May 2011, and the technical description including the pseudo-acrolithic construction, the Hyblaean limestone, the Parian marble, the 2.20 metre height, the finished back and the unfinished rear of the head. To be replaced with Raffiotta's monograph and with Alaimo and colleagues in Kalos 2 (2007). - [3] Wikipedia, 'Marion True'. TERTIARY. Used for the 2005 charges, the letter to the J. Paul Getty Trust of 18 December 2006, Michael Brand's announcement of 26 objects in November 2006, the agreement of 26 September 2007 covering 40 of 46 objects with this statue scheduled for 2010, the dropping of the Greek charges in November 2007 on limitation, and the end of the Italian case on 13 October 2010 on limitation, sourced there to Elisabetta Povoledo in the New York Times. To be replaced with the Rome court's own disposition and with the Getty's press statement of September 2007. - [4] Jason Felch, 'Chase Over: Aphrodite Crosses Final Finish Line', Chasing Aphrodite, 18 May 2011, reproducing his Los Angeles Times report. Source for the inauguration at Aidone, the seventeenth-century Capuchin monastery, the seven-foot limestone and marble description, the presence of two Getty officials, and the souvenir trade that accompanied the return. - [5] Wikimedia Commons file page for the Getty Villa plate, 'Greek Marble & Limestone Goddess, 425-400 BC (10454670775).jpg', photograph by Gary Lee Todd dated 26 June 2010, released CC0 and Flickr-reviewed on 20 August 2021, geotagged to 34.044984, -118.564978. Read in the raw wikitext; it is the evidence that the second plate shows the statue in Malibu before the transfer. - [6] Wikimedia Commons file page for the lead plate, 'Sizilien, Aidone, Venus von Morgantina, Vorderansicht.jpg', own work by the contributor Algoe, dated 29 June 2014, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Read in the raw wikitext for the date, the licence and the attribution. - [7] Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, official publications list for Clemente Marconi, consulted September 2026. Source for confirming that his identification study of this statue was actually published rather than remaining forthcoming: 'L'identificazione della Dea di Morgantina', Prospettiva 141-142 (2011): 2-31; 'The Goddess from Morgantina' in Sicily: Art and Invention between Greece and Rome (Getty Publications, 2013), p. 60; and 'The Goddess from Morgantina', Antike Plastik 31 (2016): 1-31. The full text of none of the three was fetched; this record cites the CV only as proof of publication and venue. - [8] Parco archeologico di Morgantina e della Villa Romana del Casale (Regione Siciliana), official page for the Museo Archeologico Regionale di Aidone, consulted September 2026. Confirms the statue remains on display and gives the museum's own current label for it as 'the statue of the goddess, Demeter or Kore', not Aphrodite or Venus. - [9] Trafficking Culture (University of Glasgow research project), case study 'Getty Aphrodite' by Neil Brodie, last modified 21 August 2012, consulted September 2026. TERTIARY, citing Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino, Chasing Aphrodite: The Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the World's Richest Museum (2011). Source for the alternative excavation date of 1977 or 1978 and the names Orazio di Simone and Giuseppe Mascara, neither of which appears in the Italian-Wikipedia-derived account used elsewhere in this record. Flagged in open_questions rather than merged into the graded provenance chain; to be replaced with the book itself. --- 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.