Famous New York antiquities (and ancient coins) dealer closes

Yes, their "Art of the Ancient World" color catalogs were amazing. I have a number of them, but there are also a lot of them that you can still look through on issuu.com. (I just googled Royal Athena Galleries and issuu.com, and a whole bunch came up.) They're quite useful as reference works for different styles and types of Greek vases, Egyptian figurines, and so on.

Here's a link to a slideshow from a few years ago with some photos of the interior: http://sideways.nyc/2014/11/royal-athena-galleries/.

 

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Back in the early 80s when I was making my conversion from US coinage to world and ancients, more the former than the latter at the time, I used to make trips to Carmel-by-the-Sea and visit Blackburn and Blackburn. Hal Blackburn was quite a character who among other things had an old-fashion slot machine in his back office.

B&B had an incredible stock of all sorts of coins and other items, a veritable warehouse in that shop off a Carmel side street.

So I would take some of my Morgan dollars there and work out a transaction for some nice world coins with Hal. I'm sure he was laughing all the way to the bank, but I didn't care; I was more than happy to buy coins that appeal to me.

Here is one the coins purchased from B&B. Hal, by the way, died the early 90s. His son Dean took over the business, but it was never the same, and I don't think it is around any longer.



The one dealer that I have been purchasing ancients from, much more in the earlier years than now, is Harlan Berk, who still going strong.

And, as far as the few artifacts that I have, they are from disparate sources. I wish I had the wherewithal to visit Royal-Athena Galleries when I was living in NYC in 1975-76, but those were lean times for me (recent liberal arts college grad in the midst of a lingering recession), so I had different priorities back then.

 

Donna, It looks like you scored some real treasures from Royal Athena Galleries over the years ! Maintaining two expensive locations during this Covid-19 pandemic surely impacted their decision to fold, whether they admit it or not . NYC & LA (including Beverly Hills) have been hit especially hard with the pandemic. There are many 1st class dealers in antiquities throughout the world, & in the large scheme of things I don't think they'll be missed.

 

That's such a shame, and at age 90 I would imagine he has quite a sizable family, but none of them are interested in the business.

You have the kind of artifact collection that I dream about - very cool!

 

Thanks, @Al Kowsky. I'm sure you're right, but I can still be nostalgic about Royal Athena, even though I've hardly purchased anything from them in the last 20 years.

I'm sure you're also right that continuing rent obligations during a time when revenue must have declined precipitously, despite their online presence, must have played a role in the decision to close. Just as it has for innumerable other businesses. Randy Hixenbaugh, the dealer I mentioned above who's liquidating at least part of the Royal Athena inventory and who's been one of my other primary sources for antiquities over the years, was fortunate enough to decline to renew his lease downtown in December 2019 because it was getting too expensive. Perhaps unfortunately, he moved into a new storefront further uptown in January 2020, just before the pandemic hit. The dealers with no brick-and-mortar stores have presumably been affected the least.

In the interest of promoting a dealer whom I know and like, here's a link to the Hixenbaugh website: https://www.hixenbaugh.net/. There are many beautiful -- and expensive! -- artifacts depicted. Have his prices gone up in the last year? Possibly.

Speaking of the antiquities trade, there was an interesting article in the Smithsonian Magazine yesterday (see https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smar...e-regulations-antiquities-trade-us-180976712/) about the new provisions of the Bank Secrecy Act extending its disclosure provisions (intended to deter money laundering) to antiquities dealers -- but not yet to the entire art market, which allegedly constitutes "the largest legal unregulated market in the United States" according to a U.S. Senate report last year about Russian oligarchs using shell companies to buy art .

I didn't notice any specific mention of coin dealers in the article.

Of course, antiquities dealers are not in favor of the new regulations. The article quotes the same Randall Hixenbaugh:

"[M]any in the art world argue that accusations of money-laundering in the antiquities trade are overblown. 'Virtually all transactions of high-dollar amounts in the ancient art business are handled through financial institutions and instruments already covered by the Bank Secrecy Act,' Randall A. Hixenbaugh, the president of the American Council for the Preservation of Cultural Property [a pro-dealer and collector group], tells the Times. 'Criminals seeking to launder ill-gotten funds could hardly pick a worse commodity than antiquities.'

Many antiquities dealers have opposed the new regulations. Some continue to call for reduced or scaled regulations, arguing that the financial and logistical burdens of federal oversight will place undue stress on small businesses, as the Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA) notes in a statement accessed by artnet News.

'The new regulations raise questions about the cost benefit balance of compliance,' writes O’Donnell [an analyst for Art Law Report].

'But leave no doubt after last year’s Senate report,' he adds, 'that regulators have the art market in their sights and the market must respond if it wants to have a say in the oversight that is sure to come.'”

Here's another article with further details, suggesting that extension of the Bank Secrecy Act to art dealers in general is inevitable: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/w...ht-of-the-antiquities-trade-look-like-1935081. I imagine that that would include coin dealers, assuming that they're not already covered by the provisions on antiquities dealers.

 

Donna, I'm glad you mentioned the excellent article in the Smithsonian Magazine, I'm a loyal subscriber . They often run great articles on ancient history & art. The antiquities market has been plagued with a well deserved dark reputation for a long time. When I was dealing in antiques & antiquities in CA I got a close look at many shady transactions with objects having no provenance, especially pottery & stone carvings coming from Mexico & Costa Rica. Huaqueros (grave robbers) have been supplying the antiquities market in CA for a long time with virtually no intervention from authorities. I too was guilty in acquiring many objects having a suspicious history . Over the last 15 years I've liquidated all the ancient objects in my collection that had a questionable provenance, & only add objects I feel fairly comfortable with. I emphasize the word "fairly", because an old provenance is no guarantee that an object is legit .

 

If you enter "royal athena gallery looted" in google search you will find many matches showing ancient objects which were offered or sold by them and which were looted or stolen form museums etc and later sized and repatriated.

Just some examples

Another looted conflict antiquity from the Temple of Eshmun in Sidon, Lebanon seized. This time at Royal Athena Galleries in New York

https://art-crime.blogspot.com/2020/06/another-looted-conflict-antiquity-from.html

Auction Alert and Antiquities Seizure: Second seizure at Royal-Athena Galleries, New York

https://art-crime.blogspot.com/2017/02/auction-alert-and-antiquities-seizure.html

Repatriation: Stolen Greek sarcophagus fragment heading home

https://art-crime.blogspot.com/2017/01/auction-alert-and-seizure-royal-athena.html

https://heritage-lost-eaa.com/2017/01/08/illicit-antiquity-in-royal-athena-galleries-new-york/

New Wave of Returns: Hundreds of Looted Antiquities Recovered from the Met, Princeton and Others

https://chasingaphrodite.com/tag/royal-athena-gallery/

Corinth Antiquities Returned

https://archive.archaeology.org/online/features/corinth/

Jerome Eisenberg returns antiquities: new deal with Italy

https://lootingmatters.blogspot.com/2007/11/jerome-eisenberg-returns-antiquities.html

and so on

There is a huge problem that many fake, looted or stolen artifacts have fake pedigrees and other aution houses and dealers have the same problems if it comes to verification of provenances, they either can not or do not want or do not care.

Goryn and Mosch have sold an Antonia Minor, which had fake pedigree and was stolen in Spain, it is really annoying how easily pedigrees can be invented/faked. The sale was legal if it comes to Germany law so Gorny did not do anything wrong, but goverment was involved and at the end the Antonia Minor was repatriated, not doing this would have harmed reputation of Germany.

https://www.newsylist.com/tag/art-theft/

https://www.archyde.com/spain-recovers-in-germany-a-roman-bust-stolen-in-2010-in-bornos/

https://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/illegaler-antikenhandel-antonia-minor-spanien-muenchen-1.5152187

 

It looks like Royal Athena Galleries has plenty of dirt on their hands as so many other dealers in antiquities do . Another unpleasant reality that has gotten a lot of attention this past decade is all the looted art objects proudly on display in the world's most famous museums . If these museums had to repatriate all these looted objects they would have a lot of empty rooms .

 

The question of who owns and should own cultural property is complicated and depends on who you ask. Import restrictions from Italy are mentioned here often. I wonder if there is a movement in Italy to return items stolen by:

• ELAGABALUS - the sacred stone of Emesa. (coin from acsearch, not mine)

• Venice - The Four Tetrarchs were plundered by the Venetians when Constantinople was sacked during the Fourth Crusade in 1204 and brought to St. Mark's Basilica in Venice. In the 1960s, the heel part of the missing foot was discovered by archaeologists in Istanbul close to the Bodrum Mosque. This part is in the Istanbul Archaeology Museum. from wikipedia

 

Looting is destroying our knowledge about history because looters destroy ancient sites and ancient objects are removed from their find context and lose so most of their historic value. And sometimes ancient objects get destroyed due to inappropriate "excavations" or end in some private collections without being published and so not being available for science and historians or in worst case ancient objects got lost forever, for example if gold objects are melted for material value, less profit but easier to sell. Looting is destroying the history and culture of nations and so their identity. This can not be excused.
And that looting was done in the past do not justify doing it today.
Crime is crime and only because others are doing or did crimes does not justify to do the same (in this context looting and stealing objects from museums etc.)

DonnaML
has any of your ancient objects Ex Athena proper documents like export licence from Egypt or other origin countries or a predigree prior to 1970 which can be verified?

Ancient objects without pedigree before 1970 UNESCO convention or valid export licence from origin countries are tainted and German museums are not allowed to buy such objects for example.

https://en.unesco.org/fighttrafficking/1970

 

Also the thousands of statues and other works of art looted by the Romans from Greece and elsewhere? What makes them Italy's cultural heritage as opposed to those other countries'?

I'm not Jerome Eisenberg's defense lawyer -- I doubt he needs one -- but the post above is a flagrant hit piece against Royal Athena -- by a poster I know best for staunchly defending Lanz's fakes, and challenging the veracity of members who've told their stories about Lanz's refusals to issue refunds.

Without going through the dreary process of analyzing the citations, story by story, sufficient for the nonce to point out that the majority of the citations are to sources that are as much against allowing people to collect ancient coins as they're opposed to permitting the legal collection of antiquities. As a percentage of the tens of thousands of objects Eisenberg sold over the years, the number he ended up returning, or that were "seized," was probably smaller than any major museum's. Not a single one of the citations even suggests that Jerome Eisenberg ever did anything other than return looted objects voluntarily when they were identified -- without having to be sued -- or failed to cooperate with the authorities, or had any criminal knowledge himself. He bought at least one of the objects he returned from Christies, at an auction! The implicit comparison to known crooks like Robin Symes is absurd.

As a salutary corrective to the hyperbole of the subject post, I suggest reading the following article from July 30, 2020:

https://culturalpropertynews.org/rand-corp-report-demolishes-assumptions-on-antiquities-and-terror/ (You're welcome to suggest that "cultural property news" is biased in the other direction -- I have no idea if that's the case -- but the underlying report is the underlying report.) Note the references to ancient coins as well as (or as part of) the antiquities trade.

The article begins as follows:

“We have beautiful heroines, we have bad guys, we have supporters, we have the terrorists.” Deborah Lehr of the Antiquities Coalition, speaking to the Middle East Institute, April 24, 2014

The most important story in the art world in the last decade illustrates how social influence, slick public relations, and steady repetition of false information can change the cultural policy of institutions, nations, even whole continents – even if the story is a lie. The lie is attractive, romantic, even heroic at times. There are times when the story is even partly true or just an oversimplification. There are bad apples and criminals in every occupation and the art world is certainly no exception. But the story is a lie all the same.

What is this false narrative? It is that the horrific cultural destruction in the world today and the looting of artistic heritage is driven by a handful of art dealers, collectors, and greedy museums. That respectable art dealers aren’t respectable at all – they are working hand in hand with terrorists and well-organized criminal networks that loot to order for unscrupulous collectors in the United States and Europe.

This story has already severely damaged the legitimate trade in ancient art and artifacts, including coins. More importantly, it has changed Western political agendas and pushed legislation that will cause permanent harm to cultural institutions dependent on public support for a relatively free circulation of art. It has captured the imagination of hundreds of journalists and influenced the teaching of art history, anthropology, and archaeology to a generation of students. Most dangerously, it has forwarded the careers of dictatorial rulers who play the ‘cultural heritage card’ to cloak human rights violations and even the deliberate destruction of cultural heritage by well-oiled authoritarian regimes in Egypt, Turkey, China, and elsewhere.

A major study by the RAND Corporation, Tracking and Disrupting the Illicit Antiquities Trade with Open Source Data, is the first major step in completely overturning current thinking on the size, geographical scope and participants in illicit looting and sales of antiquities. The RAND report was researched with the RAND Homeland Security Operational Analysis Center and partially funded through work for the US Department of Defense. The report shows that the conventional narrative promoted by many journalists and espoused by advocacy and archaeological organizations is dead wrong: the illicit antiquities trade is not a multi-billion-dollar enterprise operating through organized criminal networks, nor is it a significant source of revenue to terrorist organizations.

The stark difference between popular assumptions about the antiquities market and the data contained in the RAND report raises questions about how false narratives have driven legislation to regulate the art trade – and misdirected law enforcement activities attempting to curb illicit trafficking. The RAND report notes that different facts require new strategies to address the problem of illegal trade; a working cultural heritage policy must use more accurate data in order to disrupt looting and deter consumers from buying illicit goods.

The RAND report blames bloggers, journalists and advocacy groups for exaggerating – sometime ‘grossly exaggerating’ – the problem to attract headlines, funding and to effect policy change.[ii]

And it singles out one of the highest profile crusaders against trafficking, New York Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos, stating that the widely held but inaccurate belief that antiquities trafficking is linked to trafficking in drugs and weapons can mostly be traced back to him as the source.[iii] The RAND report also notes that figures of $2 billion for Syria and $3 billion to $10 billion for Egypt repeated by the Antiquities Coalition have misled the public.[iv] Interestingly, top staff at this most influential advocacy organization have also volunteered to provide expert advice on high profile criminal cases prosecuted by the New York District Attorney’s office.[v]

No evidence was supplied in the #CultureUnderThreat Task Force report that supported the claim that the antiquities trade has brought “multi-billion dollars” in revenue to terrorist organizations like ISIS. The Task Force report noted the oft-quoted $1.25 million estimation from the Abu Sayyaf raid[viii] and warnings from the State Department that “Daesh has earned several million dollars from antiquities trafficking since mid-2014.[ix] But its tenor was wildly alarmist and it called for everyone from National Security Agency to the Peace Corps to dedicate themselves to stamping out the art trade. Despite the obvious difference between “million and “billion,” the description of a “multi-billion industry” in looted antiquities has been repeated often by the Antiquities Coalition’s publications and found its way from that source into hundreds of news articles and academic writings.[x]

A Committee for Cultural Policy report, “Bearing False Witness,” published December 2017, lists 95 articles which make specific reference to a hundreds of millions to multi-billion dollar illicit trade in antiquities by in the Mideast. (This was only a partial list of those appearing in the mainstream media over a three year period ending in 2017).[xi]

However, as the RAND report notes, even advocates such as Deborah Lehr of the Antiquities Coalition have acknowledged that “[t]he biggest challenge in this field is that there’s no real information or statistics on the size of this illegal trade.”[xii]

Despite this acknowledgement, the impact of a tsunami of misinformation and bad data has gone far beyond Mideast policy-making; it has misdirected legislation on import restrictions and money-laundering in the US and the EU and compromised planning for protecting heritage around the world. By describing the actual working of the illicit trade, the RAND report makes clear that antiquities trade in the Mideast is not founded on sophisticated criminal networks but is instead opportunistic, disorganized and far, far smaller than reported. The actual facts, based on the data in the RAND report, should replace the popular myths and be used to reverse damaging policy directions and develop more effective strategies to combat looting.

***

And so on.

 

"DonnaML" Attacking some personally is generally a bad sign.
And I am not convinced that you are a lawyer in internet everboy can pretend everything without prove. A real lawyer would not have relied only on the informations given by one member here which can not be verified, a real lawyer at least in Germany would try to get the point of view of the other party and if possible witnesses to and then asking for evidence and then trying to reconstruct what happend and then deciding . Only hearing one side and believing everything is not smart and with this attacking another person.
This is unfair and I would have defended any other dealer or aution house too because I hate injustice!!
And what was done there was all vs Lanz, without really knowing what really happend, even small differences in details or not mentioned details can make a huge difference. If you would be really a lawyer you should know this, you do not act like a lawyer so I do not believe you.



One reason why only so little ancient objects and coins are repatriated is that the origin country can not know of the existence of looted objects till they enter the market and then proving that they have been looted recently from their country is difficult and often pretty much impossible especially for Greece and Roman objects which be found in many counties which were part of the ancient Roman and Greek empire.
But all here can ask themselves where all this new ancient coins and objects without proper pedigree and without export licence come from, if finds in most of this countries belong since a long time only to Government.
Most of the sized objects were stolen from museums or ex Beccina or Medici archieve, and of these stolen and looted objects exist pictures and so they can be easily identified.

You can ask yourself if I am really Lanz and if he would write something like this which is bad for business.

I assume that your objects have no proper documents, verifyable pedigree prior 1970 or export licence country of origin, if yes I would like to see.

Of course legal objects without pedigree can exist too if documents got lost.
We had 2 world wars and in some areas natural disasters occured or other incidences where documents could be destroyed. We have to ask oursef for how many objects this is really true.

It is well possible that Athena Gallery bought most or all of these objects in good faith, if they bought themself form a source which they assumed to be reliable and so they did not check pedigree and documents as they better should have done. Bad objects can be whitewashed if being auctioned or sold by reputable dealer or auciton house.

 

What a grossly offensive question.

I suggest that anyone inclined to swallow this wholesale should remember that the UNESCO convention itself has no legal force whatsoever in the USA. (See https://culturalpropertynews.org/get-the-facts/#what-is-the-1970-rule.) It's an essentially arbitrary date adopted by museums to govern future acquisitions. See the detailed article at http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/news/spencer/spencers-art-law-journal-7-17-12.asp for the actually applicable legal principles, particularly the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act of 1983, implementing the UNESCO Convention. By the way, the provisions apply primarily to imports, not good faith purchases within the USA. And, as to civil forfeiture, see in particular the following:

10. “Stolen Property.” Objects may be forfeited by Customs if stolen from “the inventory of a museum or religious or secular public monument or similar institution in any State Party” after the later of 1983 (the effective date of the CPIA) or the date of the State Party joined UNESCO. (This is a very traditional, essentially “site-specific,” definition of theft. It is the opposite of a “blank check” definition of theft under McClain triggered by a general declaration of national ownership. See below.)

11. “Safe Harbors” for Museums and Old Collections. Any “cultural property” (including Designated Materials) is exempt from the CPIA if held in the United States for a period of not less than three consecutive years by a recognized museum or religious or secular monument or similar institution, and was purchased by that institution for value, in good faith, and without notice that such material or article was imported in violation of the CPIA, if the material is published and exhibited for specified periods. Cultural property is also exempt if it has been within the United States for a period of not less than 20 consecutive years and the claimant establishes that it purchased the material or article for value, in good faith, and without notice that such material or article was imported in violation of law.

I bought every Royal Athena object I've shown in this thread, with one exception, between 1985 and 1993. So between 27 and 35 years ago. Hardly anybody was asking about specific provenance back then (for coins or antiquities), but I did get the distinct impression at the time that all of them had been on the US market for quite some time. But the fact that I bought the objects from Royal Athena that long ago, and that close to 1983, together with the fact that I have documentation of every one of my purchases (from other dealers as well), should be more than enough, I believe, to prove the necessary good faith to avoid any claim seeking civil forfeiture.

More importantly, I have no intention to sell any of my antiquities, ever. They're for my son someday. Which is why I sold none of them at my lowest economic point some years ago, and sold most of my collection of British coins and medals instead.

But if I ever did sell any of them, or my son does after I'm gone, I think the documentation I have would increase marketability, not burden it.

So why don't you go ahead and urge the governments of Italy, Greece, and Egypt to sue me?

Do you want to insult me further by suggesting that I'm potentially subject to criminal penalties? See the "Cultural Property News" article posted above, explaining that "Courts may find that an object is stolen when a defendant knows that the foreign nation has claimed ownership of the cultural property, when the foreign law clearly establishes and enforces state ownership, and when the object was removed from the specific foreign nation after passage of the national patrimony law."

Good luck!

 

Right, I'm not a lawyer. FYI, I was admitted to the Bar of the State of New York in November 1979. I'm not interested in proving my bona fides to you. The few people here who know my real name are welcome to look me up on the NY attorneys' registration site to see if I'm telling the truth.

The obvious thrust of your post is to call me a liar. Just like you called the people who complained about Lanz liars. That's apparently your modus operandi.

You are a quintessentially repulsive troll, and all you might succeed in doing is getting another one of my threads locked through no fault of my own.

 

Again if you convict someone only based on the information by one side (Nemo) without giving the accused one (Lanz) the possibility to say his point of view and to prove his innovence then this is not what I expect form a lawyer. I am so happy that I live in Germany, where lawyers try to reconstruct the truth and not bashing another one who is not here and has not the opportunity to justify himelf against imputations from another person and the imputations can not being verified .
Again what Lanz did was not ok (we know that Nemo bought the coin form him and resold it later for less and one coin was fake and he refused refund) but we do not know what exactly happend.
And the question is if LANZ ever offered NEMO a refund for the NGC condemned coin or only offering him to sell it again without charging fees (the second one fits well to Lanz). And if Lanz offered only to list it angain on ebay without asking for fees the whole imputations would not be correct anymore.
I hate such injustice, all vs one and no one gives the other side the chance or is interested in the version and giving the chance to prove his/her innocence!!!
If we like something because it fits to our point of view we accept is as truth, and because many seem to have a bad view of Lanz everything bad written about him must be true.

I am an idealist and I hate injustice and no matter what a person has done everyone deserves a fair treatment and should be considered innocent till his quilty is proven. This is was not the case here he was considered guilty from the beginning.

There are enough things we can critisize about Lanz he is not a saint but it should be fair and not basing because many do not like him.

This reminds me on bullying in school some start and later most or all will do to be cool and part of the group.

I never did bullying or participated in such things or cared about being cool, I always did what I though is the right thing and did not care for consequences.

 

I'm not convicting anyone. Just pointing out that you have a bad habit of calling people liars. I won't respond to you again, so don't bother. You know nothing about U.S. law.

 

I never said that Nemo must be a liar so you are lying or show me where I worte this, I said we do not know what really happend and so there is of course the possibility that he could have been lying intentionally or unintentionally (not mentioning details or forgotten details or memorizing them wrong).
We do not now the truth so we can not know and I do not trust informations which I can not verify no matter from whom they are.
I would never said that Nemo is or must be a liar, because I do not know what really happend but I said that it could possible because we can not verify and check what really happend so it could be the case but needn´t be the case.

My last post here, now matter if you are really judge or not I do not respect you for your misbehavior, unfair bashing and convicting can not be justified.

 

"Lolli"

You dare express outrage after having the gall to ask a fellow member this!!!!

Shame.

SC

 

Thank you. I shouldn't even have bothered responding, but I didn't like the aspersions cast on my integrity. I have to prove to him that antiquities I bought from a reputable dealer between 1985 and 1993 were legally exported? Seriously? And then to be called a liar about the profession I practiced honorably for 35 years? I think it's really quite unfair. Not to mention that everything I posted was a very small artifact, at most a few inches in height or width. Not the kind of large statuary and frescos and vases, etc. that foreign countries ever tend to go after in the hands of U.S. owners, private or institutional.

By the way, people can look up that discussion between Lolli and @Nemo about Lanz themselves and form their own opinion of Lolli's behavior.

Even as to Royal Athena, anyone can hurl accusations of negligence -- "he should have known; he should have investigated further" -- against anyone, in any circumstances, very easily. But it's another thing entirely to be able to prove the conscious disregard of substantial risks necessary to prove the required recklessness or even gross negligence.

To try to return this thread to a brighter note, here are some photos of my two other Attic black-figure lekythoi, acquired from a different dealer. Both, like the one I posted above, date from ca. 525-500 BCE. All of these types of lekythoi were made for export in the pottery district of Athens (the Kerameikos district, best-known for the ancient cemetery), and most have been found in graves in ancient cemeteries, where they served a votive purpose.

The first lekythos shows two "pygmies" with spears hunting a rooster, and is 3.5" (8.9 cm.) high. (In case anyone's wondering, I have documentation showing that it was purchased from an art dealer in Philadelphia on August 30, 1970 -- 2 1/2 months before the enactment of the 1970 UNESCO Convention on November 14, 1970, and 13 years before that Convention was implemented by the USA. Am I going to post that documentation if people demand it? No.)







The second lekythos is 4 1/4" tall (10.8 cm.), and shows a scene of a soldier's departure. He is on horseback with a pelt shield on his back,, with nude attendants before and behind holding his javelins. On the shoulder, a hound pursues a hare. The vase belongs to the "Hound and Hare" Group of ancient Greek vases, a subset of the "Little Lion" Class.* The dealer provided me with documentation demonstrating that this vase, as part of a larger group of artifacts, has been in the USA since the late 1940s. Again, please don't anybody demand that I post the documentation, because I won't.









* See https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleine-Löwen-Klasse, as translated:
"The Little Lion Class . . . is a class of Attic - black-figure lekythoi that were produced in the first quarter of the 5th century BC. The small lekythoi are characterized by a tapering body that is clearly curved inwards above the foot. The class was named after the depiction of small lions on the shoulders of lekythoi but other animals such as dogs and rabbits were also depicted." See also the Beazley Archive Pottery Database at the Classical Art Research Centre of Oxford University (https://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/XDB/ASP/searchOpen.asp#aHeader), which yields 118 results for a search for "Little Lion" Class vases.

The painters of the vases of the Little Lion class were the successors of the Edinburgh painter . The main representative of the class is the Sappho painter other pieces can be assigned to the Diosphos painter , and there are also other stylistically related, unnamed painters."

 

Nice objects.

And just for the record (for other readers). I support everyone's right to have and express their opinions. Including those that differ from mine.

But while "too many antiquities were looted from Egypt" or "I believe all antiquities should have provenance documentation and evidence of export permission" are examples of opinions someone could express - "do you have proper documentation which can be verified" is not an opinion, it is a belligerent attack. Likewise "I don't agree with your legal analysis" or "I think the law works a different way" are also opinions one could express - "I don't believe you are a lawyer" is also not an option, it is a personal attack.

SC