At the last minute, the sale of an ancient Greek amphora in a London gallery was the sale of an expert as an expert realized that he had been looted by an excavation in Italy.

Gallery Kallos in Mayfair, London, removed from the sale a black amphora – a jar of two handles and a narrow neck, made around 550 BC, after Observer contacted him about concerns expressed by the illegal trade in antiquities.

Dr. Christos Tsirogiannis, Archaeologist and a leading expert in looted antiquities and trafficking networks found evidence that led him to conclude that the amphora probably came from an illegal excavation in Italy.

He identified the amphora when the gallery offered him last month at TEFAF Maastricht, one of the world’s leading art exhibitions and antiques, and tailed him with a photo that appears to show the same object in the hands of Giacomo Medici, who was sentenced to Italy in 2004 for sale.

This photo was part of a file that took over the police, Giacomo Medici, and was on the Italian carabinieri website.

The value of the object is believed to be about 50,000 English pounds.

The Gallery Kallos, Founded in 2014 by Baroness Lorne Thyssen-Bornemisza, son of the late baron Hans Heinrich von Thyssen Bornemisza, the Swiss billionaire who created the largest collection of artwork in the world.

At a height of 23.6 cm, the amphora is decorated with sphinx, a ram and a lion. He is attributed to the artist who is known only as a painter of Fina.

The collection history given by the online gallery dates only since 1986. This created Tsirogiannis’ suspicions that the jar could be part of a unlawful excavation. The data of origin included a gallery belonging to a trader convicted of receiving stolen antiquities from Italy in the 1970s.

Tsirogiannis, a associate of archeology lecturer at the University of Cambridge, directs the research of the illegal movement of antiquities on the threats of the Cultural Heritage at the Ionian University in Corfu.

The late Paolo Giorgio Ferri, the Italian prosecutor, who pursued stolen antiquities, gave Mr Tsirogiannis access to tens of thousands of photos and other archive material seized in police raids by traffickers and other people involved in illegal trade.

For 19 years, Tsirogiannis has detect more than 1,700 looted antiquities, notifying the police and playing a role in their repatriation in 15 countries.

The findings include an ancient Greek bronze horse that New York’s Sotheby’s intended to auction in 2018. Tsirogiannis alerted his bonds to the British antiquities merchant Robin Sims.

Greece claimed the horse as its national property and in 2020 Sotheby’s lost its legal challenge. Greece welcomed the court’s ruling as a victory for countries seeking to regain their antiquities.

Last year, the Christie’s House He withdrew ancient Greek vessels from the auction, after Tsirogiannis discovered their relationship with another doomed trafficker.

Christie’s then said he had withdrawn the projects as soon as he was informed of the connection.

Tsirogiannis has repeatedly argued that auction houses and traders do not do sufficient controls with the Greek and Italian authorities and has criticized their failure to reveal the complete history of collecting objects.

Madeleine Perridge, director of Gallery Kallos, said: “We are making every effort to do our due diligence and publish all the history of collections and publications known to us … The artwork was immediately removed from the sale of advice from the competent authorities.”

Photo: Courtesy of Dr. Christos Tsirogiannis