MUSEUM Art experts question Apollo statue purchase

The museum's director said the sale was fair.
CLEVELAND (AP) -- Some archeologists say the Cleveland Museum of Art may encourage smuggling and the looting of ancient sites by acquiring a bronze Apollo sculpture with large gaps in its ownership history.
The museum proudly announced the purchase in June, saying the statue might be the only one among about 20 large bronzes in the world that can be linked to the ancient Greek masters.
Now some prominent archaeologists and other critics say the museum should not have bought the work because of the questionable history.
"The root cause of looting is collecting. It's supply and demand," Ricardo Elia, an associate professor of archaeology at Boston University, told The Plain Dealer for a story Sunday.
The museum's director disagreed, saying sharing the work with the public was important and the sale was fair.
Discovery
Malcolm Bell, University of Virginia art history professor and vice president of the Archaeological Institute of America, questioned the museum's account that the artwork was discovered by a retired German lawyer on his family's estate in the 1990s.
"It sounds like the kind of fabrication that is made frequently in the market," he said.
Ernst-Ulrich Walter, the lawyer, declined through an interpreter to be interviewed by the newspaper.
Phoenix Ancient Art, the dealership that sold the Apollo to the museum, has run afoul of the law before, said Elia, Bell and others.
Ali Aboutaam, who runs the gallery's branch in Geneva, Switzerland, co-owns the business with his brother, Hicham.
Ali Aboutaam was convicted in absentia in Egypt last year on charges of smuggling and sentenced to 15 years in prison. His lawyer, Mario Roberty, told the newspaper the charges were "absolutely ridiculous" and politically motivated.
Hicham Aboutaam pleaded guilty in New York in June to a misdemeanor federal charge that he had falsified a customs document to hide the origins of an ancient silver drinking vessel the gallery later sold for $950,000.
His lawyer, Henry Bergman, blamed a paperwork error and said the Aboutaams are "not in the business of breaking laws."
For the public
The archeologists' assumption that the statue must be stolen is the same as considering someone "guilty until proven innocent," museum director Katharine Reid said.
Letting the public see the work is a greater value than passing up the chance, she said.
"It's better in our place than in the back room of the dealer," Reid said.
Reid said she believes Walter's account and was concerned more that the Apollo purchase was "fair and square" than the dealers' past.
Before buying the work, the museum consulted half a dozen art historians and scientists. They differed on whether the work is Greek or Roman, but all agreed it is between 1,700 and 2,350 years old -- which encompasses both possibilities.
Reid said that if anyone can prove that the work was wrongly acquired, or stolen, the museum would return it and seek a refund from the Aboutaams. The price was not disclosed.