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Greek pottery from the Walsh Collection — Photo: Chris Taggart/Fordham University

Fordham University opened a new museum of Greek, Etruscan and Roman antiquities today on its Bronx, N.Y. campus. All of the work comes from the collection of William D. Walsh, a wealthy alum and longtime Fordham benefactor. But as the New York Times notes, this a tricky time to be opening a museum of ancient artifacts,. All this year and last, Francesco Rutelli, the tireless Italian culture minister, has romped through American museums reclaiming works that he said were exported from Italy in violation of its cultural property laws.

As a former assistant U.S. attorney, Walsh may have been more aware than some other collectors of the law as it relates to the trade in antiquities. But when he tells the Times that he hopes his collection is sufficiently documented because it was all acquired through auction, not private dealers, he may be putting too much faith in how energetically the auction houses vetted their consignments in the days not so long ago when buyers and sellers were less sensitive to the issue of illegal exports.

In the Times, Richard Hodges, the director of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, says bluntly that "a lot of [the Walsh collection] is not provenanced". Meaning there's no clear history of how it same into the market. Meaning it might have been looted from an excavation site. Jennifer Udell, Fordham's curator of art, says the university will be "happy to work with anyone who has a legitimate claim" to any of the work. We know that Rutelli has already reclaimed items from the Princeton Museum, so university collections are not below his radar. If he hasn't already, I suspect he'll be looking over the Fordham collection's inventory list before too long.

You can find the Times story here.