Safani Gallery

A New York family gallery whose history, according to its own about page, runs back through Dr Benjamin Mahboubian, who the firm says excavated at Hasanlu and Luristan in Iran in the 1920s and 1930s³. His son-in-law, Edward Safani, founded the gallery in New York after the Second World War, and Alan Safani, who trained at the Institute of Fine Arts, later took it to more than seventy-five international fairs, the gallery says³.

The International Association of Dealers in Ancient Art profile gives 1998 for Safani Gallery Inc.¹. The business now presents itself as Alan Safani Fine Arts LLC, offering museum-quality works and advice⁴.

Its stock is ancient art from Egypt, the Near East, the Greek and Roman world and the Islamic lands. The gallery's 2022 Notable Sales page lists a portrait of Nectanebo, an Egyptian sarcophagus, a figure of Gudea, a Cycladic idol, a Nishapur bowl and a Levantine copper idol⁴. It issued a catalogue series, Art Transcending Time, in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2016, and copies are held in the special collections of the Pfau Library at California State University, San Bernardino².