Rare Greek Funerary Sculpture Priced North of $600,000 Heads to TEFAF

Most young women in ancient Greece married in their teens and were expected to have children for the public good. The death of a young woman of marriageable age is therefore seen as a loss not only to her loved ones but also to society.

A rare piece of ancient Greek art will go on display at TEFAF art fair to commemorate the death of a young woman. Courtesy David Aaron Gallery, London, Medea Stelefrom the Attic region, dated to 375-350 BC. The work is priced at 450,000 pounds (approximately $615,000); the gallery says it has already received significant interest from a major American museum.

“It’s a beautifully carved, masterfully crafted monument,” said director Salomon Aaron, adding, “It has a lot of original pigments, which is really cool.” A high-relief profile in front of the doorway shows the woman raising her right hand to her shoulder, eyes downcast. Her name is inscribed in an inscription on the lintel, the decorative molding around the door. She wears a traditional garment called a chiton, a draped tunic tied around her waist and a large brooch hanging from her shoulders, tied to a cloak behind her back.

Her attire made her look like a Parthenoi, an unmarried young woman. The gallery notes that research by classical archaeologist Christoph W. Claremont showed that only 4 percent of the attic funerary reliefs he examined in an eight-volume series were dedicated to Partnoy.

This piece comes from a prestigious collection. It first appeared in the hands of the Athenian art dealer Theodoros A. Zoumpoulakis, who sold it in 1923 to the Hungarian gallerist Joseph Brummer, who had worked in the New York branch of his family’s gallery, which had been founded in Paris around 1906. After Blumer’s death, much of his collection was transferred to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; the institution holds the largest collection of Blumer’s works, with more than 600 pieces purchased directly from the gallery or its clients, as well as from the Blumer Archives. However, the monument to TEFAF fell into the hands of Brummer’s brother, Ernest, and then to his wife, Ella Laszlo Baché Brummer, who founded the cosmetics company Ella Baché, which is still active today.

Salomon Aaron warned those interested in antiquities such as stelae to be wary of artifacts whose provenance was not well documented. “The auction market is very active for items that tick all the boxes, are beautiful and important and have the necessary provenance,” while items without documented provenance don’t fetch the best prices, he said. “Some of the items on our stand we purchased and spent five years researching their origins,” he said. “That’s our added value.”

David Aaron Gallery was founded in Iran in 1910. The gallery’s Soleiman Haroon opened a second showroom in 1920 in Alexandria, Egypt. The gallery moved to London in 1980 and Haroon’s son David Aaron opened his own gallery in Berkeley Square in 1998. The gallery specializes in classical Greek and Roman, Egyptian, Near Eastern and Islamic art. However, Aaron tells us that top quality pieces are rare art newsthe gallery has also branched out into natural history, including the sale of large dinosaur fossils, an area of ​​the market that has recently achieved extraordinary prices. In addition to TEFAF Maastricht, the gallery exhibits at fairs such as TEFAF New York, Frieze Masters, Frieze Masters Seoul and Art Basel Hong Kong.

The gallery’s TEFAF stand will also feature Egyptian limestone baboon (664–343 BC) and the Romans Youth torso (1st-2nd century AD) in counterpoint, its origins date back to 1898.