By Lori Perkins
A bizarre detail of leaking from the Kardashian/Wet divorce is that Kim must return a looted ancient statue to Italy as part of an international art repatriation agreement.
According to an article in Jezebel and The New York Post, Kardashian purchased “Fragment of Myron’s Samian Athena” from Axel Vervoordt Gallery in Belgium in 2016. Vervoordt was hired as the interior décor designer for the couple and owns a gallery from where this object was purchased. He is the one who designed the stark white interior of the couple’s home and put the Roman statue on display in it. The statue of a Roman soldier is thought to be from the 1st or 2nd century.
According to Page Six, the statue was part of a 5.5-ton shipment valued at $745,882 and said to contain 40 antiques, as well as modern furniture and decorative objects. Further examination of paperwork about the statue had some discrepancies, leading officials to become suspicious about where it had actually come from.
Italy’s Ministry of Cultural Heritage then sent an archaeologist in 2018 to examine the work. The expert concluded that it had been “looted, smuggled, and illegally exported from Italy,” leading the country to ask for it back.
In paperwork between Kim’s lawyers and the Italian government requesting the return of the statue, Kardashian blames West. A spokesperson for Kardashian said that she didn’t even buy the statue herself and that “this is the first that she has learned of its existence.”