Phoenix Ancient Art
Phoenix Ancient Art, located in Geneva, New York City and Brussels, is a second-generation antiquities dealer specializing in Greek and Roman ancient art. Its works of art have been purchased by arts and antiquities private collectors as well as museums such as New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Louvre Museum in Paris. They have historically dealt in antiquities from the Sumerian art and Ancient Roman artistic traditions, as well as from Ancient Greek and Ancient Egyptian civilizations. Notable Collections. Phoenix Ancient Art has facilitated numerous museum acquisitions of seminal ancient art objects. Noteworthy  sales and provenances from Phoenix include: Background. Family History. Phoenix Ancient Art was founded by the Lebanese businessman Sleiman Aboutaam in 1968 and incorporated in 1995. The business continues today under the leadership of his son, Ali Aboutaam, and his son, Hicham Aboutaam has his own New York based gallery, Electrum. Ali and Hicham were born in Beirut in 1965 and 1967 respectively. In the 1980s, at the height of the Lebanese Civil War, Ali was kidnapped by a Syrian gang and held hostage until Sleiman procured his release. Following the incident, the family (Sleiman, Souad, the boys and their  sister Noura) relocated to Geneva, Switzerland, where they continue to operate a branch of the business today. In the early 90s, the young men earned a formidable reputation as buyers. Nicknamed "Tall and Taller" by the socialite set (such as those attending events with art collector Leon Levy and his wife Shelby White), they were the awe and the fear of fellow industry players. In 1998, the brothers assumed control of the family business. The takeover would have been a natural succession, but it was marked by the sudden loss of Sleiman and Souad on Swissair Flight 111. The resilence  demonstrated by the Hicham and Ali was staggering, and proved important through the changing tides of the antiquities market. Etymology. The word phoenix carries significance in ancient and contemporary cultures from East to West. It is a reference to the Phoenicia, the ancient metropolis in modern-day Lebanon, and to the date palm, known by its Latin name, "Phoenix dactylifera". The myth of the Egyptian incarnation of best-known bird, the bennu, also features in the Greek legends of writer Herodotus. Carrying into the contemporary folklore (most famously in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix), the mythical phoenix  is renowned in Western mythology to be born and reborn again from ashes. Rising and falling, up and down, phoenix cycles like the ancient world. In the face of controversy or adversity, there is always hope in the bird's inner strength. Events. In April 2009, Phoenix Ancient Art launched e-Tiquities.com, an e-commerce platform for a wide range of artworks, also including jewelry, figurines, amulets, sculpture and pottery from regions as diverse as ancient Greece and Rome, Byzantium, Egypt, the Near East and the Islamic world. In early 2014, Phoenix Ancient Art opened a second gallery in Geneva called  ‘Phoenix Ancient Art Young Collectors’, a unique gallery space that exhibits a large variety of objects from the 6th millennium B.C. through the 14th century A.D. On June 12, 2019, Phoenix Ancient Art opened a new gallery in Brussels. Fairs and Exhibitions. Phoenix Ancient Art participates in a number of international fairs, such as the Biennale des Antiquaires (Paris), the Brussels Antiques and Fine Art Fair BRAFA (Brussels), the International Fine Art and Antiques Show (New York City), the PAD (London), the Point Art Fine Art Fair (Monaco), the Salon Art + Design (New York),the Spring Masters Fair (New York ), and TEFAF (New York). They also hold local themed events in their galleries several times a year accompanied by their gallery publications.