Source: © Christie’s Images Limited 2018 Iraqi activists were incensed with rage at the sale of the artefact, although it was heralded to have shattered previous world records for Assyrian art sales, Critics called it an insensitive example of the art market profiting from suffering in the Middle East. At a Christie’s antiquities auction on October 30, while an exceedingly rare Assyrian relief sold for $31 million, decolonization protesters demonstrated outside. The sale more than tripled the artifact’s initial estimate of $10 million, Experts speculate that ISIS’s destruction of cultural heritage sites may have boosted the value of the work. The sale drew the ire of experts and activists who say the auction is an insult to the Iraqi people who have already suffered a long history of violence sustained by Western imperialism.
Source:Artsy The European Fine Art Fair has announced a new global vetting policy that seeks to remove art dealers and auction house experts on the vetting committee, and replacing them with academics, curators, conservators, conservation scientists and independent scholars only, so as to avoid possible legal issues.