Resource Center

Stories

The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast.

These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need.

Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:



Search results for "Metropolitan Museum of Art" ...

  • "The Lost Chalice"

    Author Vernon Silver dives deep into the Italian world of art smuggling. Through court documents and "interviews with modern tomb robbers, smugglers and art dealers," Silver is able to locate a valuable missing vase. The book provides an in-depth look at the world's third largest "underground economy," and how a "network of powerful people and institutions" has been at the center of the "illicit art and cultural property trade."

    Tags: Euphronios; Oxford University; Metropolitan Museum of Art; chalice; Zeus; art smugglers; tomb raiders

    By Vernon Silver

    HarperCollins (New York)

    2009

  • The world's top art cop; looted antiquities?

    Artnews reports on Italian art investigations aimed to protect the country's antiquities. The first piece profiles "Roberto Conforti, head of the Italian art and antiquities police, the largest such force in the world." The second story sheds light on a finding by the Italian investigators that antiquities exposed in American museum and worth millions of dollars have been illegally excavated from Italy in the 80s and 90s. Italy is pursuing claims for the objects and threaten to block important loan agreements with museums, Eakin reports.

    Tags: smuggling; looting; ancient Greek statues; archeology; Hellenistic silver; terra-cotta; Metropolitan; Princeton University Art Museum; Fleishman Collection

    By Hugh Eakin

    ARTnews

    2002

  • Head Found on Fifth Avenue

    The New Yorker takes a look at how archaeologists are slowly discovering who has been taking the buried treasures of ancient Sicily. Many of the unearthed pieces have ended up in NYC's Metropolitan Museum of Art and in the homes of prominent private collectors. The search for looters and the consequences are the primary focus of this article.

    Tags: Sicily; archaeological theft; Vincenzo Cammarata

    By Alexander Stille

    New Yorker

    1999

  • "Who's Faking Who?"

    This report profiles Thomas Hoving, the former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, who now edits Connoisseur magazine, using his position to pursue a vendetta against the J. Paul Getty Museum and its director John Walsh.

    Tags: None

    By Lynn Hirschberg

    Vanity Fair Magazine

    1989