[ad_1]
WORCESTER, Mass. — A bronze bust believed to depict the daughter of an historical Roman emperor has been seized from an artwork museum in Massachusetts by New York authorities investigating antiquities stolen from Turkey.
The seizure is the newest in an ongoing investigation right into a smuggling community involving objects looted from Bubon in southwestern Turkey and trafficked by means of Manhattan. A spokesperson for Manhattan District Lawyer Alvin Bragg didn’t present additional particulars of the investigation.
The bust often known as “Portrait of a Woman” was acquired in 1966 by the Worcester Artwork Museum about 40 miles west of Boston. The seizure comes weeks after the Manhattan district lawyer’s workplace seized a statue thought to painting the Roman emperor and thinker Marcus Aurelius from a Cleveland, Ohio, museum.
Worcester Artwork Museum officers mentioned in a press release that the bust taken from their possession dates from A.D. 160 to 180 and is believed to be a life-sized portrayal of a daughter of Marcus Aurelius or one other Roman emperor, Septimius Severus.
Museum officers mentioned they’d “restricted info” in regards to the bust’s historical past after they acquired it practically six a long time in the past.
“We’re very grateful for the brand new info offered to us,” mentioned Matthias Waschek, the museum’s director. “The moral requirements relevant to museums are a lot modified for the reason that Nineteen Sixties, and the Museum is dedicated to managing its assortment in keeping with trendy moral requirements.”
The bust exhibits a younger girl with a heavy-lidded gaze and hair rigorously combed into waves.
Marcus Aurelius dominated as Roman emperor from A.D. 161 to 180 and was a Stoic thinker whose “Meditations” have been studied over the centuries. Septimius Severus’ reign from A.D. 193 to 211 was marked by his efforts to transform the federal government right into a army monarchy.
Turkey first made claims in regards to the Marcus Aurelius statue in 2012 when it launched a listing of practically two dozen objects within the Cleveland museum’s assortment that it mentioned had been looted from Bubon and different areas. Museum officers mentioned on the time that Turkey had offered no laborious proof of looting.
