New light should soon be shed on the ongoing case of antique objects of illicit provenance purchased by the Louvre Abu Dhabi, which has already led to the 2022 indictment of the Louvre's former president, Jean-Luc Martinez, as well as of Jean-François Charnier, the former scientific director of Agence France Muséums, which was set up to steer the Louvre Abu Dhabi project. According to Le Monde, Serop Simonian, one of the alleged masterminds behind the case, was extradited from Hamburg to France in mid-September. He has been charged with fraud and money laundering, and is now in prison.
Born in Cairo in 1942, this naturalized German art dealer officially runs a coin-collecting business, Dionysos Antike Münzen und Antiquitäten ("Dionysus Ancient Coins and Antiquities"). According to investigators from France's Office Central de Lutte Contre le Trafic de Biens Culturels (Central Office for Combating the Trafficking of Cultural Goods, OCBC), the octogenarian dealer is in possession of no fewer than 25,000 antiquities stored in Europe and the Middle East.
The Simonian family was behind the 2017 sale of the sarcophagus of the priest Nedjemankh, which New York's Metropolitan Museum had to return to Cairo in 2019, following an American police investigation. From 2014 to 2018, the Simonian family sold seven objects of problematic provenance to the Louvre Abu Dhabi, for the sum of €50 million. All these objects were sold through the intermediation of Lebanese-German art dealer, Roben Dib, who represented the Simonians. He was extradited to France in March 2022 and indicted for organized fraud.
According to Le Quotidien de l'art, Simonian has maintained that he is innocent, claiming that the antiques came from his siblings, antique dealers originally from Cairo, and were legitimately exported to Germany in the 1970s. Contacted on several occasions, his lawyer, Christophe Ingrain, did not respond to our requests.
At the same time, a shadow is also being cast over Charnier, who intends to appeal his indictment before the highest French court, on Tuesday, November 14, pleading a lack of serious and corroborating evidence. From 2013 to 2018, the archaeologist played a leading role in managing six of the seven cases of acquisitions of artifacts destined for the Louvre Abu Dhabi.
According to information from the investigation obtained by Le Monde, police found evidence of favors on a seized computer belonging to Hicham Aboutaam, an antiquities dealer with an unsavory reputation. Alongside his brother Ali, he co-founded the Swiss gallery Phoenix Ancient Art. The two brothers, who exhibit at international fairs and sell to some of the world's greatest museums, including the Louvre Abu Dhabi, have been under investigation for a long time. In December 2003, Hicham Aboutaam was arrested in the United States for attempting to illegally import an object looted in Iran.
You have 40% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.