Who Owns the Guennol Stargazer?
How a Turkish work of art from the 3rd millennium B.C.E. ended up in the Southern District of New York
Present day: “The Guennol Star Gazer”
Republic of Turkey v. Christie's Inc., 2019
The Guennol Stargazer, Christies.com
One of only fifteen of these figures known to be in existence, the Guennol Stargazer dates to 3,000 B.C.E. and holds striking similarities to the Kiliya-type figurines.
The figure is believed to have been illegally excavated and smuggled out of Turkey in the early 1960s, eventually landing in the John J. Klejman gallery where it was sold in 1961 to Alastair Bradley Martin and his wife, Edith. The couple used the Welsh name ‘Guennol’ to identify their collection.
In 1993, billionaire collector Michael Steinhardt bought the figure and consigned it to Christie’s. The figure was to be placed on auction April 28, 2017, labeled in the catalogue as an “iconic work of art from the 3rd millennium BC.”
This case was scheduled to proceed to a bench trial on April 27, 2020; however, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the trial was postponed.
Open letter from the Turkish Ministry of Culture published in the New York Times the day after the Stargazer was sold at auction.
