Guennol Lioness
“Compared to contemporary art” says Hicham Aboutaam of Phoenix Ancient Art, “antiquities are terribly undervalued.” He made this remark after the sale at Sotheby’s in New York of a three-inch-tall ancient limestone sculpture of a lioness for $57.2 million in December 2007. The statue, known as the Guennol Lioness, is 5,000 years old and originates from Mesopotamia, where it was discovered not far from Baghdad in the early part of the 20th century by archeologist Sir Leonard Woolley. The winning price almost doubled the previous high that had been paid for a sculpture, and was three times the pre-sale estimate of the piece’s value.