Cleveland Museum of Art Statue to Be Sent Back to Libya, Where it Was Originally Stolen During WWII

Mohammed Faraj Mohammed Al-Fallos, chair of the Department of Antiquities of Libya, and CMA Director William Griswold shake hands on Friday after the two agreed an ancient sculpture would be more rightfully owned by the country where it was created. Credit: Cleveland Museum of Art

A statue at the Cleveland Museum of Art, which was originally stolen from Libya’s Ptolemais Museum during World War II, then sold to New York collectors en route from Switzerland, then donated to CMA in 1991, is now heading back to the country it was created in.

CMA confirmed Friday morning that “Statue of a Man” will be flying back to the hands of Libya’s Department of Antiquities in Tripoli roughly a year after an investigation into the piece’s origins kicked off.

“We are pleased with the collaboration and open dialogue we have had with our colleagues in the Department of Antiquities,” CMA Director William Griswold said in a statement, “and look forward to the opportunity this agreement presents for enhanced cultural exchange with Libya.”

Sculpted in what’s now the present-day eastern part of Libya, “Statue of a Man” depicts a lowly guy smiling, draped in a shawl and cupping the fringe of his skirt. According to CMA, the statue’s composed of black basalt, possibly from the lava rock of Haruj in Central Libya. Its style is a mix of Hellenistic Greek and Egyptian.

CMA’s “Statue of a Man” will be heading back to where it was created later this year. Credit: Cleveland Museum of Art

And for decades, the statue was preserved at Libya’s Ptolemais Museum, until the late 1930s, when it was looted from the building’s rubble after being bombed and destroyed by the British. It was sold to collectors in Lucerne, Switzerland, in 1960; six years later, it ended up in the home of New Yorkers Lawrence and Barbara Fleishman.

In 1991, the Fleishmans donated “Statue of a Man” to CMA, where it’s been for the past 34 years.

Last May, Libya’s Department of Antiquities, the task force geared with retrieving artifacts stolen from its land, reached out to CMA to see if they could confirm that the statue rightfully belonged back in their own collection.

After some testing, the museum concurred.

“Although the CMA acquired the sculpture in good faith, we have concluded that, due to these wartime events that took place many decades before,” Todd Mesek, CMA’s chief marketing officer, told press, “the right course of action is to transfer the sculpture to Libya.”

CMA’s statue isn’t alone. Last July, New York officials helped return to Libya two statues—“Marble Face of a Ptolemaic Queen” and “Female Bust”—that were looted from Cyrene by art trafficker Robin Symes in the 1980s.

Those two, along with three other pieces, were valued at $3 million.

“Greed led to the pilfering of these two precious artifacts from the ancient city of Cyrene,” special agent Ivan Arvelo told press at the time, “to be trafficked around the world.”

And in February, the district attorney of Manhattan worked with CMA to help transfer its statue of Marcus Aurelius (or not Marcus Aurelius) back to its determined origin in Bubon, Turkey, where 14 other antiquities were confirmed stolen.

CMA has not yet confirmed the actual date “Statue of a Man” will be back on its original soil.