Bubon Portrait Head

Bubon Portrait Head

In November 2023, authorities seized a bronze head of a bearded man from the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, alleging it had been looted from the ancient Roman site of Bubon, located in Gölhisar District, Burdur Province in modern Türkiye.

The bust was donated to the museum from the collection of Wright S. Ludington (1900-1992), a prominent artist and art and antiquities collector known throughout Santa Barbara and the surrounding areas. Ludington was one of the founders of the museum, and his early donation of 400 artworks and antiquities, including Greek and Roman sculpture, became a foundational collection.

The museum's catalog entry for the bronze head states that the broken edge of the neck suggests it probably once belonged to a full-size statue. It likely represented a Roman official from the eastern Roman Empire, but the hairstyle reflects those of an earlier period, brought back into fashion during the reign of the emperor Gallienus, who ruled from 253-268 CE. It arrived at the museum after having been slightly repaired, via soldering along the interior side of several major breakages. It is unclear who repaired it.

The head had been associated with bronzes from the ancient Roman site of Bubon since the earliest publications on the group began appearing in the late 1970s and 80s. More recently, investigators in Türkiye and at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office linked the head to reports of looting at the site.

In May 1967, Turkish authorities learned that local looters had illegally excavated several life-sized bronze statues near the village of İbecik, in southwest Türkiye. Archaeologists from the nearby Burdur museum conducted an emergency excavation and discovered the remains of a Sebasteion, a temple complex dedicated to the imperial cult, which worshipped Roman emperors as gods. By the time authorities arrived, the bronze statues were missing, but the marble bases with the names of 14 Roman emperors and empresses were left behind. Villagers told Turkish archaeologist Jale Inan they had sold nine or ten bronzes to a dealer for as much as 90,000 Turkish lira each, as well as many fragments, including heads, arms, and legs.

Academics, including Dr. Elizabeth Marlowe of Colgate University, have pieced together the corpus of objects likely looted from Bubon based on stylistic similarities and the timing of their surfacing on the art market, which appears to have been facilitated by American antiquities dealer Robert Hecht. According to the Manhattan District Attorney's office, the Bearded Head of a Man was smuggled out of the country by Turkish traffickers working for Robert Hecht, who later sold it to Manhattan dealer Matthias Komor. It was purchased by Ludington, who donated it to the Santa Barbara Museum in 1971.

"A close look at the findspot information provided and withheld in various museums for one dispersed group of looted artworks [from Bubon] shows that some are willing to sacrifice their ethics and missions in order to avoid restitution claims," Marlowe wrote in Hyperallergic.

The Manhattan District Attorney's Office's Antiquities Trafficking Unit and Homeland Security Investigations - New York began investigating objects from Bubon with Turkish authorities, and this bust in Santa Barbara was seized following the issuing of a search warrant. The museum agreed to cooperate with the repatriation. The Bubon head along with 13 other artifacts, was returned to Türkiye at a ceremony in September 12, 2024.

1

Sculpture – statues, carvings, bronzes, reliefs, figurines

Roman

Wright S. Ludington

Santa Barbara Museum of Art

1971.51.2

Türkiye

Jason Felch

Damien Huffer

Michela Herbert