Tributes have been paid this week following the death of Ittai Gradel, the gem expert who exposed the longrunning theft operation at the British Museum.
Gradel reportedly died of renal cancer in a Danish hospice on 28 April at the age of 61.
An academic and antiques dealer with a photographic memory, Gradel’s suspicions were first aroused in 2016 when he recognised a Roman cameo for sale on eBay that he had previously seen in an old British Museum catalogue.
He then began quietly tracking the seller, tracing another gem he recognised from the museum’s collections back to the same account in 2020. From his previous dealings with the seller he was able to establish that the account in question belonged to a senior curator in the museum’s Greek and Roman Department.
However, a dossier of evidence presented by Gradel to the museum in 2021 was dismissed by the institution’s previous management as “unfounded”.
The scandal finally broke in 2023 when the British Museum released a statement confirming that thousands of gems and jewellery were stolen or missing from its Greek and Roman collections, making headlines around the world.
The case led to the resignations of the museum’s previous director Hartwig Fischer and deputy director Jonathan Williams.
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The institution has since officially recovered 654 out of around 1,500 items believed to have been taken from the collections over a timespan of more than 20 years.
According to the BBC, the British Museum’s current director Nick Cullinan sent Gradel a rarely presented British Museum medal in the days before his death in recognition of his “significant contribution” and “passionate determination that wrongs should be righted”.
The silver and enamelled medal, designed by the artist Felicity Powell, was struck in 2011 to commemorate the institution’s founding as a museum of the world, and can be offered as a present to “distinguished visitors”.
Gradel was born in Haifa, Israel, in 1965, and moved to Denmark as a toddler. He held teaching posts at Aarhus University, Copenhagen University, and the University of Reading before becoming an antiques dealer specialised in classical Greco-Roman engraved gems.
The BBC’s culture editor Katie Razzall, who became friends with Gradel after working on a podcast with him, has described the gem expert as a “complete one-off”. She said he had told her it was “a bit annoying” that he would not live to see the case resolved and was fearful that it would just “fizzle out”.
The thefts remain under investigation by the Metropolitan Police but no criminal charges have been brought as of yet.
