"Antiquity." The term has undeniable connotations:
it suggests something beautiful, something rare, something valuable. Occasionally
one is given the special pleasure of encountering a given object that
is in every way exceptional one to which all the connotations of
beauty, rarity, and value clearly apply. Objects of this sort are not
merely the traces of ancient civilizations, they are more monuments telling
us what civilization is, to what it can attain, the extent to which the
mind of man can express itself with grace and imagination.
Almost always ones contact with these exceptional
antiquities occurs in the great public museums of the world. One usually
sees these objects behind the requisite plate glass or roped off from
access, and one admires but only from afar. These are not objects to be
touched or held.
The first time I walked into the Barakat Gallery in Beverly
Hills, I immediately knew that there was nothing commonplace about any
of the antiquities on display. The Barakats have had the time, the
opportunity and most importantly the ambition to bring together
the finest pieces from the ancient Near East (and elsewhere) available
in the world today. The Barakat Collection represents a concentration
of antiquities rivaling the great museum collections of the world. It
is a collection as rare and special as the antiquities of which it is
composed.
To put it simply and as succinctly as possible: these
antiquities are the best you find outside a museum the most beautiful,
the most rare, the most precious everything that an antiquity should
be.
BRUCE ZUCKERMAN
Director, University of Southern California
Archaeological Research Collection
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