Lucius Verus

Lucius Verus

As part of a sweeping investigation of the looting of the ancient site of Bubon, in modern Türkiye, the Manhattan DA's office seized this bronze statue of emperor Lucius Verus in 2023 from the home of private collector and Metropolitan Museum of Art Trustee Shelby White.

In May, 1967, Turkish authorities learned that local looters had illegally excavated several life sized bronze statues near the village of Ibecik, in southwest Türkiye. Experts believe the archaeological site of Bubon there would have been one of the most extraordinary archaeological discoveries of the 20th century had it not been plundered first.

Archaeologists from the nearby Burdur museum conducted an emergency excavation and discovered the remains of a Sebasteion, or the "Hall of Emperors" temple complex, dedicated to the imperial cult, in which former Roman emperors were worshipped as gods.

By the time authorities arrived, the bronze statues were missing, leaving only their marble bases containing the names of 14 Roman emperors and empresses. Villagers told Turkish archaeologist Jale Inan they has sold nine or 10 bronzes to a dealer for as much as 90,000 Turkish lira each, as well as many bronze fragments, including heads, arms and legs.

As with many of the looted statues from Bubon, it is not clear who was individually responsible for removing each statue. The majority were likely smuggled out of Türkiye after purchase by Robert Hecht, who found many of them their first homes within the art market.

In the case of the Lucius Verus statue, it first appeared in the collection of Mr and Mrs Charles and Xenia Lipson, Boston collectors and dealers who had arrangements with several prominent museums. They lent it to the Indianapolis Museum of Art in 1974. A catalog published by the museum in that same year describes its value, its initial brief display at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and its restoration, likely soon after import from Türkiye.

The statue was then acquired by New York collectors Shelby White and Leon Levy for an unknown price. Its next exhibition within a museum was as part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Glories of the Past: Ancient Art for the Shelby White and Leon Levy Collection exhibition. The show ran from December 1985 to December 1986, and the Lucius Verus statue was published in the accompanying catalog as item no. 174 (pg. 241).

The statue next surfaced within the Harvard University Art Museum exhibition, "The Fire of Hephaistos: Large Classical Bronzes from North American Collections" (1996, no. 50). It was lent to Harvard in part due to the Lipson's collegial relationship with Harvard's Dr. Benjamin Rowland, Prof. of Fine Arts and a curator at the Fogg Museum.

It is likely that the statue was kept after that in Shelby White's One Sutton Place apartment in Manhattan until a search warrant was granted to Homeland Security Investigations agents in April 2022. The investigation into the Lucius Verus statue and other bronzes suspected to have come from Bubon was aided by Turkish archaeologists, heritage professionals, and testimony of the local villagers.

The Lucius Veres, valued at USD$15 million, was one of 89 antiquities collectively valued at nearly $69 million and originating from 10 different countries that were seized from White as part of the investigation.

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Sculpture – statues, carvings, bronzes, reliefs, figurines

Roman

Leon Levy and Shelby White

Indianapolis Museum of Art

Harvard University Art Museum

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Türkiye

Jason Felch

Damien Huffer