Marion True

Marion True (born November 5, 1948) is the former curator of antiquities for the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California. True was indicted on April 1, 2005, by the Italian court, on criminal charges accusing her of participating in a conspiracy that laundered stolen artifacts through private collections and creating a fake paper trail; the Greeks later followed suit. The trial brought to light many questions about museum administration, repatriation, and ethics.

True was born in Tahlequah, Oklahoma in 1948, and grew up in Newburyport, Massachusetts where she developed an interest in Greek Antiquities. True later received a scholarship to study the classics and fine arts at New York University, NYU. True also has a masters degree in classical archaeology from NYU's Institute of Fine Arts, and a PhD from Harvard, where she studied under Emily Dickinson Vermeule. True was trained by Cornelius Clarkson Vermeule III, contemporary scholar of Ancient Art and Curator of Classical Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, from 1957 to 1996.

In 1982, True joined The Getty as a curatorial assistant and later became a curator in 1986. True created a new policy for The Getty in 1987, which required the museum to notify governments when objects were being considered for acquisitions. Under this new policy, if a government could prove an object had been illegally exported, the museum would return it.

In 1992, True organized a symposium to debate the authenticity of a Greek kouros, which is referred to today as the Getty kouros. The label in the museum reads, "Greek, 530 BCE or Modern Forgery". This Kouros was worth $10 million in 1985 when it was acquired, and it is believed to have been looted from southern Italy.

In 1995, True put in place another acquisition policy that prohibited the museum from acquiring antiquities that lacked thorough documentation, or that had not previously been part of an established collection. Later in 1995, The Getty incorporated the collection of Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman into the museum's collection. During that same year, True obtained a private loan to purchase a vacation home on the Greek Island of Paros; Larry Fleischman offered to loan True the money to repay this loan in 1996. Later, lawyers would question if True and the Fleischmans had a conflict of interest.

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