Photo by Giuseppe Nicoloro, courtesy flickr

Francesco Rutelli, the former Italian culture minister and deputy prime minister, is trying to force several items to be removed from a Bonhams London sale of antiquities.

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Francesco Rutelli, the former Italian culture minister and deputy prime minister, has raised an “urgent question” to his successor in the culture ministry, Sandro Bondi, concerning the government’s failure to take action over the illegal export of Italian archaeological treasures. In addition, Rutelli called on a Roman prosecutor to block the Bonhams antiquities sale on October 15.

Rutelli is most concerned about a particular item in that sale — a 4th-century B.C. red krater, or vase, from Apulia, which was once owned by Robin Symes, a British dealer who was sentenced to two years in prison in January 2005 for bankruptcy. Symes was released after seven months.

Symes had acquired looted artifacts from the Italian dealer Giacomo Medici and sold them to many Western museums including the Getty, whose former curator Marion True is on trial in Rome for illegal trafficking of antiquities. The Italian government’s negotiations with the Symes liquidation commission to recover looted works have so far ended in an impasse. Rutelli worries that the Bonhams sale is a sign that items from the Symes collection are beginning to find their way to the market.

According to Bonhams, plans for the sale had not been adjusted. A spokesman for the house said: “We have not officially heard anything from the Italian Parliament. We would obviously act the moment we receive anything requiring us legally to respond and do as we always do. If there is any question mark on something like this we either withdraw it or get into discussions....No one here was aware of the statement in the Italian Parliament.”

While the spokesman confirmed that the krater is believed to have been owned by Symes “prior to 1980,” it had passed through “many hands over the past 28 years.”