On a cold Saturday in the month of December, I met my friends at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the late afternoon for a little bit of culture. After spending some time in the Asian department, we met with Hicham Aboutaam in the Greek and Roman Department.
Hicham works with Phoenix Ancient Art in Geneva and is a connoisseur of art from the Ancient World. Hicham kindly gave my friends and I a private tour of the Greek and Roman Department. He explained that as a child, his father, Sleiman Aboutaam would teach him about ancient cylinder seals and beads, which sparked his passion for antiquities.
His genuine love for ancient art was evident in his knowledgeable and enthusiastic explanations of art works in the Greek and Roman wing. He explained that he and his brother, Ali Aboutaam, had grown up loving antiquities and could not imagine working in any other field. After this visit to the MET, my friends and I found ourselves much more knowledgeable about Cycladic, Geometric, and Hellenistic Greek Art thanks to Hicham Aboutaam.