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A good lesson in diplomacy

Ten days with family in Rome have emboldened me to tell the tale of the Embassy’s Giambologna Venus:

She is the single most valuable piece in the State Department’s worldwide art collection. The story of her travels dates to my time as Deputy Chief of Mission and Charge’ d’affaires ad interim 1990-93. She is now back at Embassy Rome, where I visited her week before last, courtesy of Ambassador Jack Markell.

All cooperation

Paul Richard told her backstory in the Washington Post 30 years ago. The Venus dates from 1583 and ended up in the State Department collection shortly after World War II. That was when the US government bought–I was told with post-war currency it printed itself–Palazzo Margherita, the imposing 19th century building on the via Veneto that still serves as the US embassy. The Venus was among the few art objects the hard-up dowager queen of the assassinated King Umberto I had not sold. Many of the rest are today in the Museums of the Villa Borghese and Palazzo Altemps.

The Venus stood for decades in a niche in the Ambassador’s grand staircase leading from the main, piano nobile (second floor in US numbering) to the courtyard. But sometime in late 1992 or early 1993 the State Department Under Secretary of State for Management called to say I should cooperate with the National Gallery of Art, which wanted to borrow the Venus for display in Washington. They would pay for her cleaning and restoration. The National Gallery had also arranged to display her at the Pitti Palace in Florence before she took up a couple of months residence on Constitution Avenue.

This all sounded fine to me. When National Gallery Director Caaarter Brown called, I was all cooperation.

Things fall apart

In the succeeding months, the cleaning and restoration went well. I enjoyed visiting the restorers, who worked in a cordoned off corner of the embassy courtyard. But other things started to come apart.

For reasons never explained to me, the Pitti Palace canceled its display of the Venus. This concerned me. I knew there would be a public controversy if she went to Washington without public display in Italy, where she had not been seen for more than 350 years. So I took advantage of my wife’s connection to the Director of the Capitoline Museums. She quickly arranged to display the Venus in the Sala degli Orazi e Curiazi. Its frescoes date, like the Venus, to the late 16th century.

While she was there, I awoke to news that terrorists had exploded a bomb in a parking lot outside this very Sala. I imagined the Venus in pieces, along with my diplomatic career. But she and I were both intact. The bomb had only broken a few windows.

Still more trouble

Then things got dicier. A rumor reached me–again through my art historian/museum curator wife–that the National Gallery was not planning to return the Venus to Embassy Rome. It belonged, the curators there thought, to the American people, which meant the National Gallery. Why should she hide in the niche above the Ambassador’s staircase?

This presented a classic diplomatic quandary. I had instructions to do something–cooperate with the National Gallery. But that could lead to a result I didn’t want–the loss of the most valuable piece in the State Department’s collection. How was I to do as instructed without sacrificing my employer’s interests? I could have passed the issue back to the State Department. But what if State decided to give away the Venus? My Ambassador wasn’t going to like that.

The National Gallery’s interests were also at risk, whether they knew it or not. The Italians had refused for many years to loan art to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Met would not return an ancient Greek “krater” stolen from a Sicilian archeological dig. I could barely get an Italian to accept a lunch invitation to meet the President of the Met during those years.

Trust but verify

For the Venus, the Italians were the answer. I rang up the Director General for Cultural Affairs at the Foreign Ministry to discuss her export to the US. He assured me there would be no problem. The committee charged with considering such exports would approve this one quickly without question. “We trust you” he said.

I had to tell him twice that he might trust me, but I still needed a formal bilateral agreement pledging the return of the Venus to Rome. He got the message the second time around. So we exchanged Notes Verbales committing the US Government to return the Giambologna Venus to Italy.

Codas

Off she went to the National Gallery, where about 185,000 people saw her. They held a big, flashy opening but forgot to invite anyone from Embassy Rome. Having just transferred to DC, I rang up Rusty Powell, who had replaced Caaarter Brown as Director. I suggested he could repair this faux pas by giving me and my wife a personal tour of the Venus on display. He graciously did that, accompanying us to see her before opening hours.

Then a few years later I met a National Gallery curator at a friend’s house. She had been involved in the Venus loan and confirmed that the National Gallery had not intended to return it to Embassy Rome. I was pleased to recount how I had prevented that maneuver.

It really is a good lesson in diplomacy: anticipate trouble, try to prevent it, and get lucky.