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The bust often called “Portrait of a Girl” was acquired in 1966 by the Worcester Artwork Museum about 40 miles west of Boston.
WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) — A bronze bust believed to depict the daughter of an historic Roman emperor has been seized from an artwork museum in Massachusetts by New York authorities investigating antiquities stolen from Turkey.
The seizure is the most recent in an ongoing investigation right into a smuggling community involving objects looted from Bubon in southwestern Turkey and trafficked by means of Manhattan. A spokesperson for Manhattan District Legal professional Alvin Bragg didn’t present additional particulars of the investigation.
The bust often called “Portrait of a Girl” was acquired in 1966 by the Worcester Artwork Museum about 40 miles (64 kilometers) west of Boston. The seizure comes weeks after the Manhattan district legal professional’s workplace seized a statue thought to painting the Roman emperor and thinker Marcus Aurelius from a Cleveland, Ohio, museum.
Worcester Artwork Museum officers stated in an announcement that the bust taken from their possession dates from A.D. 160 to 180 and is believed to be a life-sized portrayal of a daughter of Marcus Aurelius or one other Roman emperor, Septimius Severus.
Museum officers stated they’d “restricted data” in regards to the bust’s historical past after they acquired it practically six a long time in the past.
“We’re very grateful for the brand new data supplied to us,” stated Matthias Waschek, the museum’s director. “The moral requirements relevant to museums are a lot modified because the Sixties, and the Museum is dedicated to managing its assortment in step with fashionable moral requirements.”
The bust reveals a younger lady with a heavy-lidded gaze and hair rigorously combed into waves.
Marcus Aurelius dominated as Roman emperor from A.D. 161 to 180 and was a Stoic thinker whose “Meditations” have been studied over the centuries. Septimius Severus’ reign from A.D. 193 to 211 was marked by his efforts to transform the federal government right into a army monarchy.
Turkey first made claims in regards to the Marcus Aurelius statue in 2012 when it launched an inventory of practically two dozen objects within the Cleveland museum’s assortment that it stated had been looted from Bubon and different places. Museum officers stated on the time that Turkey had supplied no laborious proof of looting.
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