Acting on an accord reached last month, the Italian government is offering to lend the Metropolitan Museum of Art an array of artifacts recovered from graves in the ancient region of Etruria, in west-central Italy, to reciprocate for the Met's return of objects that Italy claims were illegally excavated from its soil.

In exchange for a Laconian kylix, or ancient Greek drinking cup, that the Met is returning under the agreement, Italy is prepared to send a comparable sixth century B.C. kylix from the necropolis of Bufolareccia, along with a selection of artifacts found in the same tomb.

A second choice would be a kylix from Etruria attributed to the followers of the Naukratis Painter from the Etruscan necropolis of Monte Abatone in Cerveteri, north of Rome, and 13 other artifacts from that tomb.

Maurizio Fiorilli, a lawyer for the Italian state, said that Italy's offer of the funerary sets was a show of "good will" toward foreign institutions that agree to return illegally excavated booty. "It's a generous offer," he said.

The decision of what to accept now lies with the Met, which is parting with some of its finest artifacts in the face of evidence that they were probably looted. Four items are to be immediately returned to Italy. As the Met only had one Laconian kylix in its collection, Italy agreed to a four-year renewable loan of a comparable artifact to "ensure the optimum utilization of the Italian cultural heritage," the agreement reads.

A Met spokesman, Harold Holzer, said the museum was "grateful" for the letter from the Italian Ministry of Culture, but needed time to study it.

The agreement calls for the return of 21 objects over all, including the so-called Euphronios krater, a rare 2,500-year-old Greek bowl that the Italians believe was taken from a tomb in Cerveteri, and of a set of Hellenistic silver that Italy contends was looted from Sicily.

The accord with the Met has been hailed here as a blueprint for future negotiations with other museums that own artifacts with a disputed provenance. Talks are already under way between Italy and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, whose former curator of antiquities, Marion True, is on trial in Rome on charges of dealing in stolen antiquities.

In April, Italian officials are expected to meet with delegations from the Princeton University Art Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Paolo Ferri, the Rome prosecutor pursuing Italy's wide-ranging investigation of antiquities smuggling cases, said that neither museum had been officially accused but added that he would not rule out legal action in the future.

Although both the Met and Italian officials have saluted the accord as a model for cooperation, Philippe de Montebello, the museum's director, has emphasized in recent statements that the importance of ancient objects' exact historical context had been overstated.

"Ninety-eight percent of everything we know about antiquity we know from objects that were not out of digs," he said in an interview last month.

Mr. de Montebello and several other museum directors have also lamented the shift in thinking that lends weight to nationalist arguments for the recovery of cultural property.