New York Billionaire Gives Up $70 Million in Stolen Artifacts

Art + AuctionNew York Billionaire Gives Up $70 Million in Stolen ArtifactsIt’s the result of a lengthy investigation into the collecting practices of Michael Steinhardt

By Tim Nelson

December 9, 2021

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A famed archeological site in Syria, one of the many nations that Michael Steinhart’s stolen artifacts can be traced back to. Photo: Getty Images

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Since 1987, hedge fund billionaire Michael Steinhardt has amassed a sizable collection of antiquities. Now, at the conclusion of a four-year investigation, Steinhardt is the subject of an unprecedented lifetime ban that will keep him from ever collecting any ancient art or artifacts ever again.

This week, the Manhattan district attorney’s office announced that Steinhardt, 81, had agreed to an arrangement that would see him surrender possession of 180 stolen artifacts worth an estimated $70 million—and comply with a lifetime ban on any further collecting efforts—in order to avoid prosecution. Some of the items in the collection may date back as far as 6000 B.C.E. Notably, the 180 seized items are only a small portion of the 1,000 or so artifacts Steinhardt has allegedly bought and sold since 1987. 

“For decades, Michael Steinhardt displayed a rapacious appetite for plundered artifacts without concern for the legality of his actions, the legitimacy of the pieces he bought and sold, or the grievous cultural damage he wrought across the globe,” outgoing Manhattan district attorney Cy Vance said in a statement.

Steinhardt has been a target of the Manhattan DA office’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit since 2017. The grand jury investigation into Steinhardt involved the execution of 17 search warrants, the assistance of roughly 60 researchers and investigators, and coordination with officials in 11 countries spanning from Italy to Syria. Collectively, that group discerned that a full 171 of the 180 antiquities Steinhardt will surrender were (at one point or another) sourced from alleged antiquities traffickers, at least two of whom have faced convictions in Italy. As The New York Times reports, photographs of at least 101 of the items in question were found in the possession of known traffickers.

For his part, Steinhardt’s lawyer Andrew J. Levander argues that responsibility for the purloined artifacts lies with the dealers who misrepresented the items’ authenticity. “Many of the dealers from whom Mr. Steinhardt bought these items made specific representations as to the dealers’ lawful title to the items and to their alleged provenance,” a statement released on Monday reads. “To the extent these representations were false, Mr. Steinhardt has reserved his rights to seek recompense from the dealers involved.”

However, federal authorities didn’t accept a similar plea of ignorance in the past. A 1997 federal case determined that Steinhardt had illegally acquired a golden phiale bowl from Italy (dated circa 450 B.C.E.), with the judge specifically refuting the argument that the Steinhardt Partners founder was an “innocent owner.”

That wouldn’t be Steinhardt’s only brush with the law before this week. The 2017 acquisition of a looted Lebanese marble statue in Steinhardt’s possession inspired the formation of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit. In addition to seizing the 180 items associated with Steinhardt’s case, the unit also recently brought down a prolific forgery operation running in Manhattan.

Spanning thousands of years of ancient history, many of the items made their way to Steinhardt as a result of looting, or else lacked credible provenance papers explaining their origin. Among them were 8,000-year-old death masks trafficked through Israel. The “Ercolano Fresco,” another standout item depicting a young Hercules strangling a snake, was supposedly looted from a Roman villa in 1995 before fetching a $1 million valuation.

The stolen artifacts weren’t just sitting in Steinhardt’s home either. Among the items seized was a ceremonial drinking vessel shaped like a stag’s head (dated from 400 B.C.E. and worth an alleged $3.5 million) that the billionaire loaned to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1993.

Although the lifetime ban deal lets Steinhardt avoid prosecution, it also serves important purposes for the Antiquities Trafficking Unit and the items they seized. Vance’s statement noted that the arrangement allows the artifacts to be “returned expeditiously to their rightful owners” rather than being tied up as evidence in a trial while “shield[ing] the identity of the many witnesses here and abroad” whose anonymity may be of use to the Manhattan DA’s office in further trafficking investigations.