New York investigators seize $69m worth of artifacts from Met trustee and philanthropist

Investigators in Manhattan have seized $69m worth of stolen artifacts from a major Metropolitan Museum of Art trustee and collector, according to a report.

The Manhattan District Attorney's Office has confiscated 89 artifacts from Shelby White, 84, over the last two years.

The office's Antiquities Trafficking Unit alleges that the seized artifacts were stolen before they were put up for sale.

Ms White is reportedly cooperating with authorities. It is unclear if Ms White and her late husband, prominent financier Leon Levy, knew the items were stolen before they purchased them for their collection.

While most of the artifacts were recovered from Ms White's apartment at Sutton Place, 17 of the recovered items were held at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art on loan, according to the New York Times.

One of the most valuable artifacts, a bronze statuette of Roman Emperor Lucius Verus, is worth approximately $15m. The piece was reportedly stolen from Turkey, according to a search warrant.

The pieces recovered by the DA's office were stolen from 10 countries, including Italy and Yemen.

The couple were major donors to the Met, providing the museum with $20m in 2007. The Met responded by opening a wing named in their honour that displays a large collection of Greek and Roman artwork.

In addition to donating to the museum, Ms White sits as an emeritus trustee on its acquisitions, building, and finance committees.

She recently was appointed to a task force directed to advise the museum's collecting practices.

“The Met has been very public in acknowledging that new information brought to light by law enforcement and others has precipitated our decision to devote additional resources to provenance research,” Ken Weine, a Met spokesman, said in a statement to the Times.

While the Met's director, Max Hollein, has supported Ms White and praised her for being a "profoundly generous supporter," antiquities experts expressed scepticism that she was unaware that the pieces were not obtained legitimately.

“There is no way that someone at her level of the market and her depth of collecting and her prominence at the Met — there is no way someone at that level did not know they should be asking for things like export licenses,” Elizabeth Marlowe, director of the museum studies program at Colgate University, told the Times.