Manhattan DA seizes ancient Roman bust from Worcester Art Museum
By Nick Stoico Globe Correspondent,Updated September 3, 2023, 11:31 p.m.
The Manhattan
district attorney's office has seized "Portrait of a Lady (A Daughter of
Marcus Aurelius?)" (160–180 C.E.) from the Worcester Art Museum.Worcester Art Museum
A
bronze bust believed to depict a daughter of the ancient Roman emperor
Marcus Aurelius that has been held at the Worcester Art Museum for
nearly six decades was “likely stolen and improperly imported” and has
been seized by authorities in New York City, museum officials said.
The
Worcester Art Museum purchased the statute, which dates to 160-180 C.E.
and is known as “Portrait of a Lady (A Daughter of Marcus Aurelius?),”
in 1966, when the museum was “provided with little information about the
object’s history,” museum officials said in a statement Friday.
Officials
said the Manhattan district attorney’s office provided “new
information” to the museum earlier this year that prompted officials to
cooperate with investigators probing the history of the statue’s
ownership.
“We
are very thankful for the new information provided to us,” museum
Director Matthias Waschek said in the statement. “The ethical standards
applicable to museums are much changed since the 1960s, and the Museum
is committed to managing its collection consistent with modern ethical
standards.”
The
bust, valued at about $5 million, is the second piece of ancient art to
be seized from a US museum by the Manhattan district attorney’s office
amid an investigation into pieces looted from what is now Turkey, a
spokesperson for the office said.
The
spokesperson for the district attorney’s office, Kay Nguyen, said in an
email that the seized art is part of an “ongoing criminal investigation
into a smuggling network involving antiquities looted from Bubon in
Turkiye and trafficked through Manhattan.”
The
statue seized from the Worcester museum is thought to have come from a
large family shrine in Turkey of an emperor, possibly Marcus Aurelius or
Septimus Severus, and is “likely a life-sized representation of one of
their daughters,” the museum’s statement said.
When
the museum bought the bust in 1966, the seller said it had been found
that same year in southwestern Anatolia, the Roman province of Lycia,
according to the statement.
“Although
the museum conducted its own research at that time, it now acquires
objects with greater diligence,” the statement said.
The
museum had never previously received a claim “or learned of any defect
in ownership” in the decades since the purchase, the statement said.
The
statue is considered “a fascinating example of ancient Roman craft,”
according to the museum. Its head and shoulders were together but
unattached when the piece was found, with each section reflecting “a
different quality of workmanship,” the museum said.
“While
the bust and shoulders are treated summarily, the head is sensitively
modeled and the hair minutely detailed in carefully combed waves,” the
statement said. “The woman’s heavy-lidded gaze betrays a contemplative
personality as distant as the emperors themselves.”
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