The Manhattan federal court has charged two antiquities dealers, Erdal Dere, the owner of the Manhattan, based antiquities gallery Fortuna Fine Arts Ltd, and his business partner Faisal Khan, with fraud by using fake provenance records to sell antiquities. The dealers each face two counts of wire fraud, which each carry a maximum prison term of 20 years, and Dere is also charged with aggravated identity theft, which carries a mandatory two years in prison. In 2018, the Manhattan DA’s office seized an ancient Etruscan terracotta vessel, Hare Aryballos (c. 580–560 BC), from Fortuna Fine Arts over concerns about its export license from Italy.
I visited Laila Muraywid’s studio in Paris, it is the kind of place that rearranges your inner geography. A Syrian artist working between painting and sculpture, she creates objects that feel at once intimate yet cosmic, like relics from ancient times that pulse with contemporary pain and splendour.