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Greece has asked the Louvre Museum in Paris to not show a disputed 4th century BC statue of Apollo on loan from a US museum, saying it may have been illegally acquired, a culture ministry source said Thursday.
"We do not want this work, attributed to the great sculptor Praxiteles, to be presented at the Louvre because doing so would legitimize" its acquisition by the Cleveland Museum in Ohio, the source told AFP, requesting anonymity.
According to the ministry, the bronze statue of a young man, said to be Apollo of Sauroktonos, was probably sold illegally after it was found in the 1990s by an Italian vessel in international waters between Italy and Greece.
"In view of the circumstances of its discovery, it would be up to Italy to reclaim the statue -- we need to discuss this case together," the source said.
Greece and Italy jointly began combating the trafficking of antiquities this year, leading to the recovery by Athens of four ancient remnants from the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
Greek authorities are currently compiling a list of other works that it plans to reclaim from museums around the world.
The disputed Apollo statue has blocked Greece's participation in the Louvre exhibit, which will run from March through June next year. Greece's central archaeological council is to withhold the loan of several works by Praxiteles pending an answer from the French museum.
According to Greek media, the Cleveland Museum claims to have purchased the piece legally from a private Lebanese collector.
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AFPLifestyle-archeology-Greece-France-US-trafficking
AFP 141159 GMT 12 06
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