Investigators seize $69M worth of stolen artifacts from Met trustee

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Manhattan investigators have seized $69 million worth of stolen artifacts bought over the years by a major Metropolitan Museum of Art trustee and art collector, according to a report.

In the past two years, 89 artifacts from the collection of prominent New York philanthropist Shelby White, 84, were confiscated by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office’s special Antiquities Trafficking Unit after they were deemed to have originally been looted, the office revealed in April.

White, the widow of legendary financier Leon Levy, has cooperated with authorities, who have not said she or her late husband knew the pieces were stolen before they were purchased.

The majority of the items were taken from White’s massive collection on display inside her swanky Sutton Place apartment, but some 17 antiquities were removed from the Met itself as White had loaned them to the prestigious museum, the New York Times reported.

Shelby White, 84, was forced to turn over nearly 90 historical art pieces after investigators determined they were looted from the origin countries. Getty Images

One of the most valuable historical art pieces reportedly looted before being purchased by White is worth a whopping $15 million alone.

The piece, a bronze statuette of the emperor Lucius Verus, dates back to the late second to early third century CE and was stolen from Turkey, according to a search warrant.

A bronze statuette of the emperor Lucius Verus valued at $15 million was stolen from Turkey. SUPREME COURT OF THE STA 1E OF NEW YORK

White’s public image and close ties to the Met have been subject to scrutiny following the mass seizure of art pieces and artifacts stolen from 10 different countries like Yemen, Turkey and Italy.

White and Levy have donated $20 million to the famed institution and in 2007, the Met opened the Leon Levy and Shelby White Court, a large gallery featuring Greek and Roman art.

Shelby White and her late husband, Leon Levy, amassed a collection of more than 700 antiquities from around the world. NYU

White serves as an emeritus trustee to the Met and sits on its acquisitions, buildings and finance committees.

Weeks ago, she was appointed to a 12-member task force that will advise on the museum’s collecting practices in an effort to create stricter guidelines, the Times reported.

“The Met has been very public in acknowledging that new information brought to light by law enforcement and others has precipitated our decision to devote additional resources to provenance research,” Ken Weine, a Met spokesman, said in a statement to the publication.

A bronze bust of a man valued at $3 million was stolen from Italy. SUPREME COURT OF THE STA 1E OF NEW YORK

Met director Max Hollein has stood by White, stating that she “had an enormous impact at this museum” as a “profoundly generous supporter,” according to the Times.

But outside experts have been more critical.

“There is no way that someone at her level of the market and her depth of collecting and her prominence at the Met — there is no way someone at that level did not know they should be asking for things like export licenses,” Elizabeth Marlowe, director of the museum studies program at Colgate University, told the newspaper.

Four stolen sections of an Anatolian columned sarcophagus were valued at $1 million. SUPREME COURT OF THE STA 1E OF NEW YORK
White is a major donor and current trustee emeritus to the Met and sits on several of the museum’s committees. AFP via Getty Images

White and her late husband have amassed a collection of more than 700 antiquities from around the world and have had to repeatedly relinquish items authorities determined to have been looted over the years.

Following the most recent probe, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg returned three 2,000-year-old antiquities valued at $725,000 to their rightful home in Yemen.

“Our investigation into the collector Shelby White has allowed dozens of antiquities that were ripped from their countries of origin to finally return home,” Bragg said, while thanking White for her cooperation.

White’s lawyer Peter Chavkin told the Times that she and her late husband purchased items in her extensive collection “in good faith, at public auction and from dealers they believed to be reputable.”

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