A U.S. appellate court ruled on Wednesday that Turkey does not have the right to recover a 6,000-year-old marble statue from Christie's auction house because Ankara waited too long to claim it was stolen. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan stated that Turkey "should have known" by the 1990s that the statue of "Guennol Stargazer" might have left its territory unlawfully.
The court added that Turkey "delayed in asserting its rights" by waiting to sue Christie's and billionaire Michael Steinhardt, the statue's owner, until April 2017 when the auction house offered it for sale. Judge Rosemary Pooler wrote on behalf of a three-judge panel, "Turkey took no action despite its culture ministry indicating the statue's presence in New York City."
Steinhardt and his wife paid $1.5 million for the statue, which is about nine inches (22.9 cm) tall, in 1993. The statue fetched $14.5 million at a Christie's auction, but the buyer withdrew without completing the transaction. Wednesday's ruling upheld a previous decision from 2021 after an eight-day trial.
