The Cleveland Museum of Art has recently removed a bronze statue believed to depict the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. The statue, standing at six feet four inches tall, was seized by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office as part of an investigation into a smuggling ring based in Turkey.
The museum had listed the statue as a “Draped Male Figure” dating back to 150-200 A.D., with the provenance traced back to art dealer Charles Lipson in Boston. The sculpture, valued at around $20 million, had been in the museum’s collection since 1986.
The seizure of the statue is connected to an ongoing criminal investigation into an antiquities smuggling network that involves looted artifacts from Turkey being trafficked through Manhattan. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has indicated that the statue’s seizure warrant values it at $20 million.
The statue was actually removed over two months ago, and the museum’s online description was altered to remove any reference to Marcus Aurelius. The statue will be transported to New York this month for further investigation.
The Turkish government claims that the statue was stolen from the Roman archaeological site of Bubon in southwestern Turkey back in the 1960s. Zeynep Boz, head of the anti-smuggling unit in Turkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism, has stated that new evidence supports the claim that the statue was stolen.
There has been a long-standing dispute surrounding the ownership of the statue, and its seizure is seen as a step toward resolving this issue. However, the museum has not made any public statements regarding the claim made by Turkey.
Cleveland Museum of Art Chief Marketing Officer Todd Mesek stated that the museum takes provenance issues seriously and reviews claims to objects in its collection carefully. However, as a matter of policy, the museum does not publicly discuss whether a claim has been made or not.
