Sidon Bull's Head

Sidon Bull's Head

The journey of an ancient sculpture of a bull’s head illuminates many of the winding pathways of the antiquities black market– from its theft during the Lebanese civil war and through the hands of multiple dealers and private collectors before ending up at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

On July 8, 1967 the bull's head was excavated from the Temple of Eshmun in Sidon, Lebanon by French archaeologist Maurice Dunand. In 1979, during the Lebanese civil war, the bull's head and other artifacts from the Eshmun excavation were transferred to Beirut, where they were stored in a secure location in the Byblos Citadel. The bull's head remained in the citadel until 1981, when armed members of the Phalangist paramilitary group seized it among several other artifacts. After negotiations with the antiquities directorate, the Phalangists returned many of the objects to the citadel, but the bull’s head and dozens of other objects disappeared into the black market.

According to court records, in subsequent years the bull's head was associated with various antiquities dealers, including George Lotfi in Beirut and Frieda Tchacos in Zurich. On April 11, 1991, four sculptures stolen from Eshmun appeared in an auction by the Numismatic & Ancient Art Gallery in Zurich before they were seized and returned to Lebanon. In December 1994, Sotheby’s offered a male torso and a sarcophagus fragment from Eshmun for sale. Both were eventually seized and returned to Lebanon. Several more Eshmun objects were recovered over the years.

On May 18, 1996, the Bull's Head appeared in shipping documents being delivered to London dealer Robin Symes' New York penthouse at the Four Seasons' Hotel on 57th Street. On November 27 of the same year, Symes sold the head for USD$1.2 million to collectors Lynda and William Beierwaltes of Colorado, who placed it in their living room.

"There was not a whisper – not even the faintest hint of a whisper – about whether it was a lawful antiquity," wrote Assistant Manhattan District Attorney of Matthew Bogdanos in his later search warrant application. "Indeed, the lawfulness of the Bull’s Head (C-17) does not appear to have been part of any documented conversation between the Beierwaltes and Symes.”

In 1998, forensic archaeologist Christos Tsirogiannis identified several looted antiquities in the Beierwaltes Collection after their artifacts appeared on display in their home in an article in House and Garden.

In 2004, the Beierwaltes asked Max Bernheimer, Head of Christie's Ancient Art & Antiquities Department, to appraise the collection. He concluded the collection of 115 antiquities was worth USD $51.5 million. Their main supplier had been Robin Symes, who sold the collectors 97 of the objects.

The following year, the Beierwaltes approached Hicham Aboutaam at Phoenix Ancient Art about selling the collection, including the Bull's Head, for USD $95 million. The head was shipped from Colorado to the Geneva Freeport in 2006.

In 2008, Phoenix requested a search for the head on the Art Loss Register, a commercial database of stolen art. No match was found because, it was later discovered, the company had failed to enter data on the thefts that was collected in 2000. Phoenix published the head in their catalog for their 24th Biennale des Antiquaires at the Grand Palais in Paris.

In September of 2009, the head was shipped to New York where hedge fund billionaire and antiquities collector Michael Steinhardt expressed an interest in buying it. Steinhardt purchased the Bull's Head in August 2010 for $700,000. In October of the same year, he loaned the head to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which described its provenance as “Ex-American private collection, collected in 1980’s-1990’s.”

In April of 2014, Carlos Picon, the Met's curator of Greek and Roman art, noticed that the head appeared to be similar to the one that disappeared from Eshmun. The artifact was quietly removed from display and Aboutaam was notified. The same month, the Beierwaltes' re-acquired the head from Steinhardt for $560,000 ($700,000 minus Aboutaam’s 20% commission). It stayed with the couple until October 2016, when the Met's General Counsel Sharon Cott wrote to Steinhardt stating that the Met intended to notify Lebanese authorities about the stolen head.

William Pearlstein, the Beierwaltes’ attorney, acknowledged that the head was likely the one found in Eshmun but asked the Met not to contact Lebanese authorities. On December 5, 2016, Met Director Thomas Campbell notified Lebanon that the head on loan was looted from Sidon. A month later, Sarkis Khoury, the Lebanese Director General of Antiquities, requested the return of the artifact. He also wrote to the Beierwaltes with a similar demand in March 2017.

Acting on the request from Lebanese authorities, the Manhattan DA’s office seized the Bull’s Head from the Met on July 7 of 2017.

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Sculpture

Greek

Lynda and William Beierwaltes

Michael Steinhardt

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Lebanon

Liv Siefert

Jason Felch