The Museum Case resumed yesterday ... here's what happened (via Forbes):

Prosecutors in the trial of a former curator of the J. Paul Getty Museum on Monday displayed photos seized from the warehouse of a convicted art trafficker they claimed were proof the Getty and other U.S. museums acquired stolen art from Italy.

Maurizio Pellegrini, an archaeological expert and a consultant testifying for the prosecution, compared about a dozen of the pictures with photos of what he claimed were the same pieces after they had been prepared for display in the Getty.

He said the photos showed that artifacts bought by the California museum had been smuggled out of Italy by Giacomo Medici, convicted in December and sentenced to 10 years in prison for conspiracy in international trafficking in antiquities.

Former Getty antiquities curator Marion True and art dealer Robert Hecht are accused of receiving and conspiring to deal in illegally acquired antiquities. The defendants, both Americans, deny wrongdoing.

Franco Coppi, one of True's defense lawyers, said he did not contest that some of the artifacts at the Getty may have been smuggled, but he said True didn't know about their alleged illegal origin.

"We don't have to explain how these objects arrived at the Getty, our problem is to prove that Mrs. True was convinced of their legitimate origin when she acquired them for the Getty," he said.

The trial, seen as a warning from Italy to the art world, followed a 1995 raid of Medici's offices in Geneva where police found 10,000 photos, some of which depicted artifacts they deemed of "uncertain origin."

The case against True involves about 35 artifacts acquired by the Getty museum between 1986 and the late 1990s - including bronze Etruscan pieces, frescoes and painted Greek vessels.

In one case, Pellegrini compared a photo of a restored 5th century B.C. Etruscan statuette and another photo that allegedly shows the unrestored piece just after it was dug up from the Cerveteri archaeological site near Rome.

Using a laser pointer Pellegrini pointed to identifying marks in the two photos, including a burn mark on the base of the statuette.

"It's the same one, 100 percent sure," Pellegrini said.

He also showed a photo seized from Medici depicting a fragmented and dirty statue wrapped in Italian newspaper - which he said was additional proof the object had been looted from Italy - alongside another of what he said was the same piece after it was bought by the Getty.

Another photo confiscated from Hecht in Paris showed a vase Pellegrini said was from Puglia that was bought by the Boston Fine Arts Museum in 1991.

Neither True - who made a surprise appearance at the trial last month - nor Hecht was present in court Monday. In Italy defendants are not required to attend their trials.

Italy - rich in ancient history - has strict laws stipulating that antiquities belong to the state and cannot leave its territory, except on loan for exhibition, and it is hoping the trial will help it recover many artifacts that it contends were illegally excavated or exported. The Getty recently returned three ancient pieces.

See also the coverage from the New York Times (includes a photo of one of the disputed objects). The Scoop's Suzan Mazur also has a new piece up, on the background of Bob Hecht ...