There was a time—it seems so long ago—when New Yorkers awaited the arrival of their Sunday Times with a distinct sense of anticipation. In the arts, literature, and cultural sections of the bulky package, one invariably found a variety of interesting insights and opinions, delivered by a team of perceptive, well-informed commentators. On Sunday, November 12, 1972, the paper once again did not disappoint its readers. On the front page was a brief report that the Metropolitan Museum had made a spectacular acquisition; its Director, Thomas Hoving, announced the purchase of a magnificent Attic sixth-century kylix krater, signed by the potter Euxitheos and the painter Euphronios. That Sunday, The New York Times Magazine also featured the fabled artifact on its cover in glowing color—an unprecedented case of double-exposure on the same day. Inside, a long article spared no superlative: the hitherto unknown masterpiece would, in Hoving’s words, “re-write the history of Greek vase painting.”

Even readers with the most superficial knowledge of classical archaeology and the antiquities market must have smiled wryly at the museum’s disingenuous assertion that the thrilling discovery emerged from a “European collection formed at the time of World War I.” Although no further details were forthcoming, the real provenance of the great vase was only too easily imagined: it must have been found in an Etruscan necropolis, probably somewhere north of Rome and, in all likelihood, only months before.

Indeed, by early February 1973, a bit of clever investigative reporting by Nicholas