ATHENS: Greece on Monday reclaimed an ancient funerary vase found in the possession of a Swiss art dealer after it had been illegally exported, the Greek culture ministry said.

More than one metre (three feet, three inches) high, the decorative vase — known as a lecythus — was made by Athenian sculptors in the fourth century BC, and depicts a banquet scene in which a seated woman greets another woman.

“We are extremely satisfied to welcome back a marble Attican lecythus that was illegally exported from our country,” Greek Culture Minister Michalis Liapis told reporters at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.

The vase was found in 2007 in the hands of a Swiss antiquarian who intended to auction it off in Maastricht, the Netherlands, the ministry said.

Greek authorities identified it from photographs seized from suspected antiquity smugglers in a prior raid, and the Swiss antiquarian was persuaded to hand over the vase unconditionally.

Last May, Greece and Switzerland signed an agreement in Bern binding both states to support each other in locating illegally exported items and arranging their repatriation.—AFP