In one of the first ripple effects of a deal struck by the Metropolitan Museum of Art to return some prized antiquities to Italy, the museum said yesterday that a Met trustee and benefactor was ready to address Italian allegations about works in her own collection of artifacts. At a news conference in Rome, the Met's director, Philippe de Montebello, said the trustee, Shelby White, had told him last week that she was willing to meet with Italian cultural officials to discuss eight works she owns that the Italians believe were illicitly excavated and removed from the country. "She wants to do the right thing and she is eager for this to be behind her," Mr. de Montebello said, adding that he had notified the Italian government of her position before the Met signed its own pact with Italy yesterday. "I urged them to be in touch with her and her lawyer." His comments contrasted with previous remarks Mr. de Montebello has made distancing the museum from the collection amassed by Ms. White and her husband, the financier Leon Levy, who died in 2003. As the ink was drying on the Met's own agreement to return 21 objects to Italy, Mr. Montebello seemed to be signaling a desire to resolve outstanding issues with Italy at a moment of good will between its government and the Met. Referring to the pact later in a telephone interview, he said, "The tone was amazingly positive and good, and I hope that will spill off into Shelby's area." Reached yesterday in New York, Ms. White declined to comment on whether she had been contacted by Italian officials, but indicated that she was pleased the message had been conveyed. "I look forward to talking to Philippe upon his return," she said. It is not clear exactly what objects in the Levy-White collection remain in the Italians' sights. In December, The New York Times reported that Italian officials were investigating several works in Ms. White's collection, including two that have been on view at the Met along with other objects she owns. The Italian investigation has put the museum in a delicate position as it prepares to open a 20 million Roman gallery next year that was largely financed by Ms. White and Mr. Levy and is to bear their names. In December, Mr. de Montebello said that any questions about works on loan to the Met from the Levy-White collection were between Ms. White and the Italian government. "The Levy-White collection presents very little concern to me because it is not mine," he said. The Met has also vigorously defended this separation of the two issues in its negotiations with Italy over the last few months, which proved a nettlesome point for Italian officials. In a draft of the restitution agreement they sent to the Met in January, for example, Italian officials included a clause requiring the Met to hand over any documents and provenance information pertaining to works on loan to the museum that may have been excavated in Italy. But the museum balked at the provision. The clause was not reinstated, and the final agreement signed by both sides yesterday does not address works on loan to the museum from Ms. White. Still, Paolo Ferri, an Italian prosecutor working on a high-profile criminal case against Marion True, the former antiquities curator of the J. Paul Getty Museum, has continued to investigate Ms. White's collection and has not ruled out possible legal steps in the case. That investigation has left the museum potentially vulnerable to future claims against a longtime trustee and prominent supporter. The issue is complicated by parallels several people have drawn close to the collectors between the Levy-White antiquities and those of another New York couple, Barbara Fleischman and her husband, Lawrence, who died in 1997. Italian prosecutors charge that some works purchased by the Fleischmans came from illicit sources. Those objects figure prominently in the trial of Ms. True, the former Getty curator. At the same time, Mr. de Montebello has been actively involved in shaping new ethical guidelines for art museums about antiquities loans from private collectors, and any unresolved questions about such works in the Met's collection could be seen as compromising his leadership in that effort. The guidelines, which are to be announced later this week by the Association of Art Museum Directors, are part of a continuing effort by the group to establish general principles for antiquities collecting by museums. They call for individual institutions to consider any ethical and legal issues that might be raised by borrowed antiquities that have an incomplete provenance. Mr. de Montebello said that the guidelines did not have any particular bearing on Ms. White's situation which largely relates to works that are not at the Met and emphasized that only one of the works Italy has raised questions about is now on view at the museum. Italian officials said they welcomed the overture from Ms. White but declined to discuss how they plan to proceed in her case. "We're open to everything," said Maurizio Fiorilli, a lawyer for the Italian state in the negotiations with the Met. "We've set out a path, now it can be followed." Hugh Eakin reported from New York for this article, and Elisabetta Povoledo from Rome.