Dietrich von Bothmer

An ardent opponent of the Nazi dictatorship, he attended Berlin's Friedrich Wilhelms University and then Wadham College, Oxford in 1938 on the final Rhodes Scholarship awarded in Germany.

[1] In 1972, together with the Director, Thomas Hoving, Bothmer argued in favor of the purchase of the Euphronios Krater, a vase used to mix wine with water that dated from the sixth century BCE.

The Government of Italy demanded the object's return, citing claims that the vase had been taken illegally from an ancient Etruscan site near Rome.

The krater was one of 20 pieces that the museum sent back to Italy in 2008 in exchange for multi-year loans of ancient artifacts that were put on display at the Met, as part of an agreement reached in 2006.

Athens, his 1991 book Glories of the Past: Ancient Art from the Shelby White and Leon Levy Collection, and in 1992, Euphronios, peintre: Actes de la journee d'etude organisee par l'Ecole du Louvre et le Departement des antiquites grecques, etrusques de l'Ecole du Louvre (French Edition).

[10] He also contributed in 1983 to Wealth of the Ancient World (Hunt Art Collections),[11] Development of the Attic Black-Figure, Revised Edition (Sather Classical Lectures)[12] in 1986, and a wide variety of other publications.

He was survived by his wife, Joyce de La Bégassière (née Blaffer),[15] as well as by a son, Bernard von Bothmer of San Francisco, a daughter, Maria Villalba of New York City, three stepdaughters, five grandchildren, and five step-grandchildren.