The Getty Museum in Los Angeles announced on Tuesday that it will return to Italy a fragment of a first century B.C. Roman fresco that came into the prestigious art institution's collection in 1996.

The museum, famous for its ancient Greek and Roman artwork collections, said it decided to return the fresco, which is a wall fragment containing a landscape scene, after it learned that a matching fragment was being repatriated by a private collector.

"Seeing these fragments together made it clear that the two were part of the same wall design and belonged together," said Michael Brand, the Getty Museum's director, in a statement.

"We greatly value the relationship we have with our colleagues in Italy and appreciate the opportunity for scholarly dialogue, which can enrich our understanding of our cultural heritage and help bring to light objects such as this one that should be repatriated," he said.

The fresco will be given to the Italian Ministry of Culture next month, according to the museum.

It was unclear how the American museum acquired the piece, which dates to the first quarter of first century B.C..

The Getty has agreed to return hundreds of antiquities and artwork of dubious provenance to Greece and Italy since 2005, when the museum's former curator Marion True was charged for smuggling stolen antiquities out of the two countries.

(Xinhua News Agency April 8, 2009)