MANHATTAN (CN) — Angling to auction off a 5,000-year-old Anatolian statue, Christie’s submitted evidence Monday that casts doubt on a bid by Turkey to repatriate the rare idol.
Turkey’s government filed its claim to the 9-inch relic known as the Guennol Stargazer earlier this year, saying the statue was illegally excavated and then smuggled out of the country.
Though Turkey purports not to have heard about the piece for decades before Christie’s advertised it for an April 28 auction, Christie’s says this point is undermined by the writings of Rafet Dinc, who curated the state-owned Manisa Museum between 1986 to 1993.
Writing in 1997 for Turkey’s Ministry of Culture about an academic symposium, Dinc called it “known” that “an idol of ‘Kiliya Type’” is in the “Guennol collection in New York,” according to an Aug. 28 brief by Christie’s.
Guennol is Welsh for the surname of New York collectors Alastair Bradley Martin and Edith Martin, who bought the Stargazer in 1961.
“Dinc also cited a 1992 article by German archaeologist Jurgen Seeher in which Seeher not only identifies the figure as ‘Guennol Collection, New York’ but also includes two photographs of the Guennol Stargazer,” Christie’s brief states. “Likewise, in the previous year’s article covering the ministry’s 1995 symposium, and in a self-published abbreviated version of the same research, Dinc cited the same 1992 Seeher article.”
Christie’s says another Turkish archaeologist who wrote about the statue was Turan Takaoglu, a professor at Canakkale Onsekiz Mart Universitesi in the Dardanelles.
Describing two excavations conducted under Dinc’s supervision for a 2001 publication by Turkey’s Ministry of Culture, Christie’s says Takaoglu “cited both of Dinc’s earlier Ministry articles and thanked Dinc and the Directorate of Museums for their support.”
“Takaoglu also cited, once again, the 1992 Seeher article that identified the Guennol Stargazer by name,” the brief continues.
Christie’s says the repatriation lawsuit must fail if there is evidence that Turkey knew about the statue’s location for longer than three years before it sued.
Christie’s is represented by Thomas Kline with Cultural Heritage Partners.
Read the entire article at Courthouse News.