An historical gilt bronze Buddhist sculpture that traveled a circuitous and legally questionable route from a rice paddy in southern Cambodia to the capital of Australia will quickly be headed again to its homeland.
The sculpture of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara Padmapani — the benevolent “lord who looks on from above” and “lotus bearer” — dates to the ninth or tenth century. Over about 15 years, it traveled from a rural space close to the Vietnamese border to the fingers of Douglas A.J. Latchford, a infamous trafficker of Asian antiquities. In 2011, he in flip bought it and two smaller accompanying statues to the National Gallery of Australia, the place they’ve resided ever since.
Now, after an in depth investigation into the work’s provenance, the gallery will return the sculptures in not more than three years to Cambodia, giving the federal government time to arrange an acceptable place for them in Phnom Penh, the capital.
At a ceremony final week in Canberra, Australia’s capital, Susan Templeman, a particular envoy for the humanities, described the handover when it comes to reparations.
“It is an opportunity to put right a historical wrong,” she stated, “but also to strengthen our ties and deepen our understanding.”
Museums in rich nations all over the world are confronting the sophisticated legacy of lots of their most-cherished objects — some the spoils of struggle or empire; others merely stolen. At the identical time, the clarion name from the objects’ international locations of origin to return these ill-gotten treasures is rising tougher to disregard.
Cambodia, the place treasures from the Khmer and different cultures had been looted throughout many years of struggle and genocide, has launched a worldwide effort to claw again symbols of its fabled heritage because it challenges the museums and collectors who’ve lengthy defended their acquisitions as absolutely documented and unquestionably lawful.
In 2014, the National Gallery of Australia ordered an unbiased audit into the provenance of about 5,000 Asian artworks. In 2021, it repatriated 17 works of Indian artwork linked to the convicted smuggler Subhash Kapoor, in addition to the discredited seller William Wolff.
Suspicion concerning the Cambodian works has swirled since not less than 2016, when the work was taken off show and an investigation started.
The works had been bought as a set for $1.5 million from the personal assortment of Mr. Latchford, a British antiquities seller who died in 2020.
For the museum, it was one thing of a triumph: The annual report from that 12 months described the three sculptures, made by the Cham individuals of Vietnam — who lived in what’s now Cambodia — as “perhaps the most extraordinary work acquired this year,” bringing “focus and prestige” to the museum’s collection.
But in the years that followed, Mr. Latchford, once heralded as an expert in Cambodian antiquities, including within Cambodia, became widely discredited. At the time of his death, he faced charges of wire fraud, smuggling and conspiracy.
In June, his daughter Nawapan Kriangsa agreed to forfeit $12 million from his estate, according to federal officials, as part of a settlement of a civil case that accused her father of profiting from the sale of stolen Cambodian artifacts.
In recent years, the provenance of works connected to him, many of which were shrouded in secrecy, have been tainted.
Mr. Latchford is believed to have worked with looters like Toek Tik, who went by Lion. Once a teenage foot soldier for the Khmer Rouge, he found more lucrative employment selling stolen ancient statues. He spent the last two years of his life, before his death from cancer in 2021, helping the Cambodian government identify and recover looted artifacts.
Lion was one of two looters who first took the three Cham bronze works from what is today a rice field in 1994, according to an interview with the other looter by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
“I was around 35 years old when I was asked to dig,” the person, who goes by The Falcon, informed the broadcaster. “I was very poor. Our country was still at war.” He was paid about $15 for his contributions, he stated.
In an interview with The Times in 2012, Mr. Latchford defended his long career in the tangled world of antiquities collecting. “If the French and other Western collectors had not preserved this art,” he said, “what would be the understanding of Khmer culture today?”
A believer in reincarnation, he said he had once been told by two Buddhist priests that “in a previous life I had been Khmer, and that what I collect had once belonged to me.”
At the handover ceremony in Canberra last week, Kong Vireak, a representative from the Cambodian Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, described the restitution of the sculptures as a way for a nation traumatized by war to heal.
“The return is a miracle,” he said, “and sets an example for the world.”
Source: www.nytimes.com