If a Greek vase falls in the forest and no one’s there to hear it ...

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Last year New York’s Metropolitan Museum sent back to Italy the Euphronios krater, the great sixth-century BC painted vase it had acquired under dubious circumstances in 1972 for a million bucks. (In inflation-adjusted currency, that’s about $5 million today.) It’s among the most important looted antiquities returned to its place of origin.

Now the vase has been installed in the Villa Giulia, Rome’s national museum of Etruscan art and artifacts. (The Onesimos cup returned by the J. Paul Getty Museum is also there.) And, horror of horrors, some critics are apparently concerned that, on anecdotal evidence, not many visitors are going to see Euphronios’ masterpiece.

This is a problem?

I couldn’t tell you how many times I stopped by the Met’s galleries to look at the krater in the more than three decades it was in New York. Certainly not every time I was at the museum -- not by a long shot -- and sometimes just for a quick gander, if I happened to be passing through the gallery that housed it. Years would even go by between looks, either sustained or speedy. But the total is easily in the scores.

This much I’m sure of: Never once in all those visits did I encounter a crowd around the Euphronios krater in the Met. In fact, I’m hard-pressed to recall ever having to jockey for viewing position with another living soul -- even after the storm of publicity about the deal to return the looted work to Italy. Perhaps I did, but if so it was the exception that proves the rule of general indifference.

That’s not unusual. The Met is the most-visited art museum in America -- 4.6 million in attendance last year -- but most are tourists, it’s a huge place (stretching four city blocks) and Greek vases probably aren’t high on the list of must-see displays. (Think instead Impressionism, Egyptian art and temporary exhibitions.) There’s a lot to see and do at the Met -- the collection numbers some 2 million objects, only a fragment of which is on display -- just as there’s a lot to see and do in other museums’ permanent collection galleries. And in Rome.

Since the Met bought its beautiful, and exceedingly rare Duccio Madonna in 2004 -- for a headline-making price reported to be in excess of $45-million -- I’ve made a point of getting to know it whenever I’m at the museum. Usually the gilded little panel is being passed by in a manner just like the Euphronios krater was for 35 years, and apparently is now at the Villa Giulia.

The point is that, when it comes to museums, quality of art experience trumps quantity every time. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Art is not for everybody; art is for anybody -- anybody who wants it. Judging by the numbers might work for Michael Jackson albums, but it’s a dicier approach when applied to ancient Greek pots.

Crowds, as anyone who’s ever struggled through a hugely popular temporary exhibition knows, can even impinge on the intimate, solitary interaction that often makes art worthwhile. If the Villa Giulia isn’t swarmed with visitors clamoring to get to the Euphronios krater, I say: Swell!

-- Christopher Knight