An Italian judge ruled on Thursday that the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles must hand over a rare bronze statue that has been at the heart of a four-decade dispute. Judge Lorena Mussoni decreed that the statue, “Victorious Youth,” left, must be “confiscated from the museum” and transferred immediately to the Italian government, which the ruling said was its rightful owner. Maurizio Fiorilli, a lawyer for the government, said the ruling was a confirmation that the Getty “had not acted in good faith when they bought the statue,” which was found by Italian fishermen in the Adriatic in 1964 and bought by the Getty in 1977 for almost $4 million. The Italian justice ministry must now make a formal request to American authorities to execute the court order. The work, a second- or third-century B.C. sculpture of an athlete, known as the Getty Bronze, had been excluded from a 2007 agreement between Italy and the Getty for the return of 40 artifacts that Italy said had been looted, pending the court decision. The Italian culture ministry said on Thursday that it hoped the Getty would now review that accord and that it would return the statue “in light of this ruling.” The Getty said a statement that the court order was “flawed both procedurally and substantively.” The museum said it would appeal to Italy’s highest court and “vigorously defend its legal ownership of the statue.”