PLUNDERS OF THE WORLD
Upper East Side a hot spot for priceless stolen treasure
For decades, staggeringly valuable antiquities were a brisk trade in Manhattan, with posh antiques galleries lining Upper East Side avenues.
But that era is now screeching to a halt. “It’s a total turning point,” Ben Lewis, the British host of the podcast “Art Bust: Scandalous Stories of the Art World,” told The Post. “We’re in a moment where owning antiquities taken from the country of origin is much less acceptable than it was just 15 years ago.”
As the world moves toward a reckoning with the history of colonialism, demands for the repatriation of historical art objects stolen from poor countries and sold into rich ones are multiplying at an unprecedented rate.
Lewis is quick to point out the positive side of the legal antiquities market. “It’s good that there’s lots of exchanges between cultures — you wouldn’t have art history unless people from one country saw art from another. That’s one of the great ways that art progresses. But that doesn’t mean it should be stolen — which a lot of stuff is.”
According to the Global Investigative Journalism Network, it is nearly impossible to pin down a valuation on the sprawling stolen antiquities market. But museums, galleries and private owners — many of which are on the Upper East Side — are all facing intense scrutiny of their prized collections, particularly items with questionable or sparse documentation. According to a recent article in the Atlantic, “The enclave of old-money families along Fifth Avenue’s Museum Mile is America’s worst neighborhood for antiquities crime.” One of the biggest antiquities busts was the focus of Lewis’ podcast this summer: The Met’s golden coffin of Nedjemankh, a glittering Egyptian treasure discovered to have been looted. In a stranger-thanfiction development, a gold-gowned Kim Kardashian posted on Instagram a photo of herself at the 2018 Met Gala with the treasure, which led to a tip from an incensed group of looters who hadn’t been paid for their find of the coffin. That tip would lead to the case being solved. For the episode, Lewis interviewed Matthew Bogdanos, head of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit — the man who made the bust.
Bogdanos, Lewis said, may be the single biggest reason the world is now paying more attention to art looting.
“He’s straight out of central casting, pure Scorsese,” Lewis said of the hard-charging Bogdanos, who has made it his mission to go after the heavy hitters in the illegal antiquities trade.
Here are a few examples of priceless stolen art uncovered inside some of NYC’s most gilded addresses in recent years.