1/4/2024 0 Comments Guennol lioness![]() Depicting a muscular anthropomorphic leonine-human, it sold for 57.2 million at Sotheby's auction house on December 5, 2007. The piece was acquired by private collector Alastair Bradley Martin in 1948 and has been on display in New York’s Brooklyn Museum of Art ever since. The Guennol Lioness wnl is a 5,000-year-old Mesopotamian statue allegedly found near Baghdad, Iraq. It also beat the 28.6 million dollars paid for “Artemis and the Stag,” a 2,000-year-old bronze figure which sold also at Sotheby’s in New York in June and held the record for the most expensive antiquity to be sold at auction.ĭescribed by Sotheby’s as diminutive in size, but monumental in conception, The Guennol Lioness was created around 5,000 years ago - around the same time as the first known use of the wheel - in the region of ancient Mesopotamia. The sale easily broke the previous record for the highest price for a sculpture at auction, which had stood at 29.1 million dollars and was set just last month at Sotheby’s in New York by Picasso’s “Tete de Femme (Dora Maar).” The successful buyer was identified only as an English buyer who wished to remain anonymous. “Before the sale, a great connoisseur of art commented to us that he always regarded the figure as the ‘finest sculpture on earth’ and it would appear that the market agreed with him,” they said.įive different bidders, three on the telephone and two in the room, competed for the sculpture. “It was an honor for us to handle The Guennol Lioness, one of the greatest works of art of all time,” Richard Keresey and Florent Heintz, the experts in charge of the sale, said in a joint statement. The carved Guennol Lioness, measuring just over eight centimeters (3 1/4 inches) tall, was described by Sotheby’s auction house as one of the last known masterworks from the dawn of civilization remaining in private hands. The exceptional nature of the objects included in the Guennol Collection is legendary - in December 2007 the Guennol Lioness, a Mesopotamian limestone sculpture, fetched $57.1 million, setting a record price at auction for an ancient work of art.A magnesite or crystalline limestone figure of a lioness,Ī tiny and extremely rare 5,000-year-old white limestone sculpture from ancient Mesopotamia sold for 57.2 million dollars in New York on Wednesday, smashing records for both sculpture and antiquities. The Stargazer was acquired by the current owner, a New York private collector, from the Merrin Gallery in August 1993. ‘Guennol’ is the Welsh word for ‘Martin’, and the choice of Welsh is an allusion to the place where the couple spent their honeymoon. The Guennol Stargazer was a part of the Guennol collection, which was formed by prominent art collectors Alastair Bradley Martin and his wife, Edith. The sleek and abstract form of this extremely rare work was a source of inspiration for 20th-century masters such as Brancusi, Modigliani and Henry Moore. Max Bernheimer, International Head of Antiquities at Christie’s. ‘The Guennol Stargazer is an iconic work of art and one universally recognised as the finest Kiliya idol in existence,’ states G. The last marble example of Kiliya type to have appeared at auction was The Schuster Stargazer, which sold at Christie’s New York on 5 June 2005 for $1,808,000. The sculpture was on loan to the Brooklyn Museum of Art until it was purchased at auction by an English collector. ![]() The sculpture sold for 57.2 million at Sothebys auction house on December 5, 2007. ![]() ![]() It shows the form of a muscular anthropomorphic lioness-woman. The couple - who have Welsh origins, called their estate Guennol. The Guennol Lioness is a 5,000-year-old Mesopotamian statue found near Baghdad, Iraq. In 1948, he sold it to New Yorker Alastair Bradley Martin and his wife Edith. Most of the complete examples have been broken across the neck, as with the present figure, suggesting that the sculptures were ritually ‘killed’ at the time of burial. The Guennol Lioness was found at a site in Kurdsn about 80 years ago and seems to be stolen by British archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley and bought in 1931 by Joseph Brummer, a New York art dealer. There are only about 15 nearly complete idols that survive, although fragmentary examples, particularly heads, abound. ‘Stargazer’ is the colloquial title derived from the slightly tilted-back angle at which the large head rests on the thin neck, thus creating the whimsical impression of the figure staring up at the heavens.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |