Met Museum to Return 16 Looted Khmer Artifacts

An historical larger-than-life sandstone Buddha head, a bronze sculpture of a seated Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, and a Tenth-century goddess statuette from a distant temple advanced are amongst 16 looted Khmer works presently within the technique of repatriation again to Cambodia and Thailand, in keeping with bulletins by the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork and the US Legal professional’s Workplace for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) launched right this moment, December 15.

Fourteen of the items can be returned to Cambodia and two can be returned to Thailand, which the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork mentioned successfully expunges its assortment of all identified Khmer paintings linked to notorious antiquities trafficker Douglas Latchford, who was indicted in 2019 for buying works stolen from Cambodian heritage websites and illicitly dealing the looted gadgets on the worldwide marketplace for over half a century. (Latchford died in 2020, earlier than his trial).

Made between the ninth and 14th centuries, the sculptures are prime examples of the Hindu and Buddhist spiritual techniques that dominated the period during which they had been crafted. Ten of the 16 gadgets will stay on show in The Met’s galleries for South Asian artwork with up to date labels noting their deaccession from the museum’s assortment whereas preparations for his or her return are made, a Met spokesperson informed Hyperallergic.

The museum’s repatriation efforts come after the Worldwide Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) revealed a report in March that exposed The Met’s assortment holds greater than a thousand objects linked to people accused or convicted of antiquities theft. After a number of artwork seizures by the SDNY, the museum introduced in Could that it could undertake a number of initiatives to reassess its 1.5 million object assortment for looted works, together with the hiring of 4 provenance researchers to assessment its holdings.

“The Met has been diligently working with Cambodia and the US Legal professional’s Workplace for years to resolve questions concerning these artworks, and new info that arose from this course of made it clear that we must always provoke the return of this group of sculptures,” The Met’s Director and Chief Govt Officer Max Hollein mentioned in right this moment’s assertion. In 2013, the museum voluntarily returned a pair of sculptures often called the “Kneeling Attendants” to Cambodia after studying they’d been pillaged from the forested Koh Ker temple advanced, the previous capital of the Angkorian empire. One of many gadgets now being returned, a sculpture of a feminine goddess lacking its arms and toes, was additionally looted from this website, the place fragments and its authentic plinth stay as of final November.

Since 2012, SDNY has been investigating and initiating the return of dozens of illegally trafficked Cambodian artifacts. In September, the workplace got here to an settlement with the household of George Lindemann to return 33 stolen antiquities that investigators estimate price the late billionaire a minimum of $20 million. A number of months earlier in June, Latchford’s daughter Julia Copleston additionally reached a settlement with SDNY to forfeit a Seventh-century bronze Vietnamese statue depicting a Hindu deity along with $12 million of her father’s cash.