{"id":551,"date":"2021-04-16T08:33:18","date_gmt":"2021-04-16T00:33:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.atelierauction.com\/globalupdates\/?p=551"},"modified":"2021-04-13T23:36:04","modified_gmt":"2021-04-13T15:36:04","slug":"turkey-seeks-to-recover-14-4-m-stargazer-sculpture-in-u-s-federal-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.atelierauction.com\/globalupdates\/artist\/turkey-seeks-to-recover-14-4-m-stargazer-sculpture-in-u-s-federal-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey Seeks to Recover $14.4 M. Stargazer Sculpture in U.S. Federal Court"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When the auction house brought a 6,000-year-old, nine-inch marble sculpture of a female figure to sale in 2017, Christie\u2019s had touted it in a promotional video as a \u201cstrong art historical statement and truly the definition of a masterpiece.\u201d The object ended up selling for $14.4 million at auction, despite the Turkish government trying to halt the sale claiming ownership.<\/p>\n<p>Now, the marble figurine, known as the \u201c<a id=\"auto-tag_guennol-stargazer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.atelierauction.com\/globalupdates\/\" data-tag=\"guennol-stargazer\">Guennol Stargazer<\/a>,\u201d is the subject of a bench trial in Federal District Court in Manhattan to determine ownership. In the meantime, the buyer who was to pay the $14.4 million has backed away from the sale, and the sculpture is being held in the vault at Christie\u2019s Rockefeller Plaza salesroom, according to a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.atelierauction.com\/globalupdates\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">report<\/a>\u00a0in the\u00a0<em>New York Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>As part of its lawsuit, attorneys for Turkish government are asking the court to rule in their favor, citing a 1906 Ottoman Decree, which subjects all antiquities found within Turkey\u2019s borders to state ownership claims. The country\u2019s government said that it would provide evidence that the stargazer was not only found in Turkey but that it was excavated and exported while the 1906 decree was in effect.<\/p>\n<p>Attorneys for the two plaintiffs, Christie\u2019s and collector Michael Steinhardt countered that the Turkish government has \u201cno direct evidence of where or when the Stargazer Idol was found, excavated or exported: it has no witnesses to the excavation or export and no photographs,\u201d according to the\u00a0<em>Times\u00a0<\/em>report.<\/p>\n<p>The Guennol Stargazer was previously owned by Alastair Bradley Martin, an art collector and amateur tennis star, who had acquired it sometime in the 1960s. The work had loaned the object to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for various periods between 1966 and 2007. Additionally, the plaintiff\u2019s attorneys added that J. J. Klejman sold the stargazer to Martin; Klejman had sold works to the Met that were part of Lydian Hoard, which the museum returned to Turkey in 1993.<\/p>\n<p>Steinhardt, the seller in the 2017 auction, had acquired it in 1993 from New York\u2013based Merrin Gallery, according to Christie\u2019s provenance records. When Christie\u2019s listed the lot in 2017, it was credited as coming from a \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AtelierAuctionsg\">New York private collector<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The defense lawyers in the ongoing suit claim that the Turkish government had known about the idol\u2019s presence in New York as early as 1992 but did not act on it until 2017, just before the object was to be sold at Christie\u2019s. They added that the Turkish government\u2019s 25-year wait to make an ownership claim \u201cbaited the trap for dealers, collectors, and auction houses,\u201d adding that it \u201cset them up for huge losses.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Source:https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When the auction house brought a 6,000-year-old, nine-inch marble sculpture of a female figure to sale in 2017, Christie\u2019s had touted it in a promotional video as a \u201cstrong art historical statement and truly the definition of a masterpiece.\u201d The object ended up selling for $14.4 million at auction, despite the Turkish government trying to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,13,7,4,3],"tags":[137],"class_list":{"0":"post-551","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artist","8":"category-auction","9":"category-events","10":"category-gallery","11":"category-latest-news","12":"tag-guennol-stargazer"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Turkey Seeks to Recover $14.4 M. 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