An Analysis of the Stern Collection of Cycladicising Art

The loan exhibition of the Leonard N. Stern collection of Cycladicising art at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art has been drawing much attention. Our detailed analysis has just been published by Mediterranean Archaeology.

Gill, D. W. J., and C. Tsirogiannis. 2025. "The Stern Collection of Cycladic Figures and the Metropolitan Museum of Art." MeditArch 38: 1–24.

The structure of the article is as follows:

I. Introduction 

II. The Formation of the Stern Collection 

III. Cycladic Figures in Public Exhibitions and Key Publications 

IV. From Cycladic Master to Cycladic Sculptor 

V. The Sources of Cycladic Figures Known Before 1970 

VI. Potentially Looted Material 

VII. Potential Forgeries 

VIII. The Rest of the Cycladic Collection 

IX. Repatriation or Loans: The Political Dimension 

X. Conclusion

Two other studies of the Stern collection have appeared:

Gill, D. W. J. 2025. "Artwashing the Cyclades: The Leonard N. Stern Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art." BMCR.

Gill, D. W. J. 2025. "Leonard Stern Collection of Cycladic Antiquities". Museum of Looted Art.

There is a shorter discussion of the Stern collection in this study of Cycladic figures:

Tsirogiannis, C., D. W. J. Gill, and C. Chippindale. 2025. "A Corrupt Cycladic Corpus of Marble Figures." Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology & Heritage Studies 13: 203–33. [DOI]

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