4Guennol Lioness – Price: $57.2 million
Next on our top list is the Guennol Lioness, worth $57.2 million.
The Guennol Lioness is a 5.000-year-old Mesopotamian statue found near Baghdad, Iraq.
The limestone sculpture, measuring just over 8 cm, was described by Sotheby’s as ‘one of the last known masterworks from the dawn of civilization remaining in private hands‘.
Depicting a muscular anthropomorphic lioness-woman, the Guennol Lioness was sold at Sotheby’s auction house on December 5, 2007.
Before that, the sculpture had been acquired in 1948 by a private collector called Alastair Bradley Martin from the collection of Joseph Brummer.
Also, from that time to its sale in 2007, the sculpture had been on display at Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York City.
