Ali Aboutaam of Phoenix Ancient Art in Geneva, Switzerland

Asserting that ancient art objects can be an excellent way to diversify assets when considering investment vehicles, nevertheless, Hicham Aboutaam cautions that the prospective investor must also possess passion for and knowledge about the antiquities he is procuring.

Collecting antiquities is not like other ways of investing money, obviously, explains Hicham Aboutaam. Those collecting these rare, beautiful art objects will be displaying them in their homes, so therefore must enjoy viewing them, now, and in the future. Collectors also must be informed about the items they collect, so that they make appropriate purchases at the correct prices.

Phoenix Ancient Art and the Aboutaam brothers, Hicham and Ali, make collecting antiquities the most pleasant and rewarding of pastimes. They love to educate the public and they guarantee that everything you purchase is exactly what you wanted and expected.

According to Hicham Aboutaam of Phoenix Ancient Art, collecting and owning antiquities has always been an interest to people throughout history. Antiquities are appreciated for their beauty as art objects as well as their role as repositories of the cultures of the progenitors of western civilization. For this reason collecting antiquities is a growing interest, and if the number of objects can never get larger, as demand increases and supply is static, prices will rise. This fact makes investing in antiquities a pretty safe bet.

In other words, as Hicham Aboutaam puts it,

“Especially antiquities originating in the area of the Mediterranean basin are the essence of our western civilization.”

Art collecting has always been a source of joy and satisfaction for many people, from the rich to the not-so-rich. Until relatively recently, however, collecting art was not thought of as a primary means for investing. In recent times works of art have been more and more reliable as a haven for funds, rewarding the collector with larger and larger profits on the resale at auction of the collected objects.

For instance, in a recent sale at Christie’s in New York, over $325 million in sales was enjoyed, the second highest total sales at a contemporary art auction since the 2nd World War.

In the antiquities marketplace, especially in the realm of ancient art, this fact is even truer. Considering that there is a limited amount of ancient art, (no one is producing any more of it) items are therefore rare and in demand, and demand continues to grow.

According to Hicham Aboutaam of Phoenix Ancient Art, antiquities can be the perfect blend of a satisfying hobby or interest with an excellent way to diversify one’s portfolio.

A wonderful example of Hellenistic Realism, this bronze sculpture depicts a street dance that appears to be suffering from some type of deformity or other sickness. As an example of daily life, we see the artist expressing extreme care to capture the details with precision. Anatomically we see clearly energetic movements of the dance, rendered in an unnatural but realistic style.

Although it is difficult to guage the age of the dancer depicted, it can be surmised that due to the figures extreme thinness and large, smooth forehead and facial features that we are observing a man getting on in years.

Ali and Hicham Aboutaam invite you to examine more examples from their catalogue, “Exotics of the Classical World” and enjoy a trip to the classics, with a little bit of a different point of view.

Guennol Lioness

“Compared to contemporary art, antiquities are terribly undervalued,” says Hicham Aboutaam of Phoenix Ancient Art. This remark was made in response to the sale at Sotheby’s in New York of a 3 inch tall ancient limestone sculpture of a lioness for $57.2 million in December 2007. To date that was the highest ever paid for a sculpture.

The statue, known as the Guennol Lioness, is 5,000 years old and originates from Mesopotamia, where it was discovered not far from Baghdad, Iraq in the early part of the 20th century by archeologist Sir Leonard Woolley.

The winning price almost doubled the previous high which had been paid for a sculpture, and was three times the estimate of the piece’s value before the sale, at $18 million. In November of 2007 a Picasso bronze sold for $29.2 million, the previous high price, the “Tete de Femme (Dora Maar).”

Attic Amphora Vase

In an interview with Hicham Aboutaam, we learn about a beautiful and rare stamnos, or Greek pottery, which was used in ancient times to carry liquids. In this case the liquid it carried was most likely wine.

According to Aboutaam this stamnos was made near the end of the 6th century, B.C.E. “Attic” refers to Attica, which includes Athens and was the prestige dialect of Greek.

Discussing the various types of storage containers in use in ancient Greece, Hicham explained that water would be stored in a hydria, wine in an amphora, and olive oil in a small, hanging alabastron. This stamnos was probably one of the most rare shapes of Greek vases.

This particular vase was decorated with a chariot race scene in which two dogs are included, one with a bone and the other dog running along with the horses. The Michigan painter, as he is known, depicted the scene with great feeling for the excitement and emotion of a chariot race.

On the shoulders of the vase a banquet is depicted, in which there found three women are alternating with three bearded men, reclining at the meal. According to Aboutaam it is unusual for women to be depicted on a vase in this way.

Phoenix is anxiously awaiting the upcoming International Fine Art and Antique Dealers show

Park Avenue Armory

which should prove to be the best one yet, according to Ali and Hicham Aboutaam of Phoenix Ancient Art.

This is Phoenix’s third year in a row in which they have displayed some of their best art works from the ancient world. The show will be taking place at the Park Avenue Armory located at 66th St. on Park Ave, running from Thursday October 16th until Thursday October 22nd.

At the opening of the show a full color catalogue will be released including all the works which will be present at the show.

Phoenix Ancient Art and the Aboutaam brothers hope to see you there.

Roman Bronze Bust

Hicham and Ali Aboutaam of Phoenix Ancient Art are pleased to announce that they will be displaying many of their antiquities at the upcoming International Fine Art and Antique Dealers Show.  Phoenix will be located in the prominent position of E2, and will feature art works from all over the ancient world, including Rome, Egypt, Greece, Mesopotamia and Islam.

There will be a full color catalogue including the works displayed at the show, which is part of Phoenix’s ongoing series of publications of a scholarly nature as well cataloging the fairs they have participated in.
The most prominent feature at the fair on display at the Phoenix booth will be a bigger-than-life ancient Roman sculpture carved from green basalt skillfully rendering a muscular, heroic man’s torso.

Ali and Hicham Aboutaam arranged an exhibition of “Exotics of the Ancient World.” The following is taken from the introduction to the catalogue which was published for this exhibit.

In the 19th century the neo-classical movement together with the renewed taste for antiquities reinforced the image of ancient idealism. Beauty was filled with elegance and nobility.

Because of this focus on the idealization of beauty, an entire aspect of antiquity was forgotten. The dimension of the ancient world which was marginalized and considered negligible included representations of the strange, unusual and picturesque. These works of art were viewed as trivial and even repulsive.

This collection hopes to suggest a bit of a change of scenery. We believe there is a parallel counterpart in the literature of the times. We at Phoenix Ancient Art believe it is a response to a type of weariness or boredom, perhaps caused by an excess of dignity and grandeur.

Ali and Hicham Aboutaam of Phoenix Ancient Art presented a beautiful catalog displaying unusual antiquities from a class with neglected, forgotten themes.

The following is the introduction to the catalog.

The works of Greco-Roman antiquity are familiar to our vision of the world. We are well acquainted with the themes of reason, moderation and truth, these values being the cornerstones of western civilization as we know it. In addition, the essence of the art is naturalistic: based on objective observations of the reality surrounding us. However the art, as art, goes a step further, responding to the reality with a desire to surpass reality, making it truer, more beautiful, and more perfect than the reality observed. There is systematic idealization, often depicted in the artistic representation of the human form, which is seen as the highest standard of beauty. This is why it is fundamental to the Greek notion of beauty that the gods are represented through the human form, distinguished only through an exceptional sense of majesty.