Ancient sculpture expected to bring up to $18M(UPDATE)

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Ancient sculpture expected to bring up to $18M
WATCH VIDEOSource: CCTV.com
12-05-2007 10:34

A limestone figure of a lioness created 5,000 years ago, is expected to sell for between 14 million and 18 million US dollars. The figure, known as The Guennol Lioness, measures just three and one quarter inches in height. It was carved in the earliest days of civilization when the wheel was first used. Now the ancient treasure is ready to go on auction in New York.

It is not only the lioness' age that makes it so valuable. Robert Keresey Worldwide head of Sothebys Antiquities says the carving is a work of great artistry and beauty.

Richard Keresey, world wide head of Sotheby's antiquities Dept., said, "It's the power and beauty of the form, the unusual posture and the sense of monumentality that a sculpture only three and a quarter inches high, conveys. One scholar wrote that when you look at it in person, it seems to fill your entire field of vision."

The Guennol Lioness has been on display in the Brooklyn Museum of Art since 1949, after being purchased by Alastair and Edith Martin in 1948.

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UPDATE.

Tiny Statue of Lioness Sells for Record $57.2 Million (Update2)

By Philip Boroff


Dec. 5 (Bloomberg) -- An ancient limestone statue of a regal lioness just 3 inches tall sold today for $57.2 million including commission at Sotheby's in New York, almost doubling the previous auction record for sculpture.

The price more than tripled the lioness's presale high estimate of $18 million. The previous record for sculpture was $29.2 million for a Picasso bronze, ``Tete de Femme (Dora Maar),'' sold last month at Sotheby's in New York.

Today's buyer, who was dressed in a checked gray suit and wore reading glasses as he cradled the auction catalog, was identified by Sotheby's as English. He said he was an archaeologist and otherwise declined to comment. The sale price didn't surprise at least one observer.

``It's a phenomenal piece,'' said Robert Simon, a New York art dealer who specializes in Old Master paintings. ``It has tremendous power.''

Known as the Guennol Lioness, the 5,000-year-old Elam statue is said to have been made in what is now Iran and found near Baghdad, Sotheby's said. It's been on view at the Brooklyn Museum since 1948, on loan from Alastair Bradley Martin, the grandson of steel magnate Henry Phipps.

Martin and his late wife assembled an art collection ranging from Mexican folk sculpture to a Willem de Kooning painting to Japanese porcelains. They named their Long Island home and collection ``Guennol,'' the Welsh word for Martin, a romantic nod to their honeymoon in Wales.

Shown at Museums

The Guennol Collection was exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1969 and the Brooklyn Museum in 2000. Martin has served as a trustee and president of the board of the Brooklyn Museum. The sale benefits a charitable trust established by the Martin family.

Compared with contemporary art, ``people are beginning to learn how undervalued antiquities are,'' said Hicham Aboutaam, president of Phoenix Ancient Art, a New York antiquities dealer.

The final price includes a buyer's premium, or commission, of 25 percent of the hammer price up to $20,000, 20 percent of the price from $20,000 to $500,000, and 12 percent above $500,000.

To contact the writer of this story: Philip Boroff in New York at

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