Ali Aboutaam of Phoenix Ancient Art in Geneva, Switzerland

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.

Not only can you purchase antiquities from Phoenix Ancient Art, but there are beautiful catalogs available which discuss interesting subjects which many of the antiquities available at Phoenix are examples of.

For example, Ali and Hicham Aboutaam published a catalog entitled “Exotics of the Classical World.”

Within this catalog 40 separate pieces are discussed in depth in English, with a full French translation of each description available in an appendix at the back.

The premise of this collection is a counterpoint to what has come to be accepted as the theme of Greco-Roman antiquities and the neo-classical movement of the 19th century. In opposition to the traditional notion of the ‘Greek-Roman’ ideal of beauty, idealism, elegance and nobility, the “Exotics” collection point to a different standard, that of the unusual, strange, picturesque, and even ugly, at times.

Delve into the world of “Exotics” with the Aboutaam brothers, and get a taste of something different.

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).”