Shocking as the spectre of art crimes is, reparative action and reciprocal collaboration by individuals, art institutions and investigative agencies on either side of the East-West divide is gradually enabling the restitution of illegally smuggled art from European, American and Australian collections to their source countries. Artefacts like the Benin bronzes of today’s Nigeria, and artworks from India, Cambodia, and other Asian countries are now finding their way home.
Such returns have been possible due to the sustained efforts of some individuals and organisations in procuring the necessary evidence of loot and negotiating international bureaucratic entanglements. In the case of India, Vijay Kumar of ‘India Pride Project’ and art historian Kirit Mankodi deserve special mention.
With the dramatic arrest of art dealer and smuggler Subhash Kapoor in 2011, a sordid saga of illicit international trade in Indian antiquities has been unfolding rapidly. This has enabled the repatriation of Indian masterpieces like the Sripuranthan Nataraja by the National Gallery of Australia in 2014 and recently, some exquisite Indian sculptures by the Yale University Art Gallery, US.
Some of the most heart-wrenching tales of plunder and exploitation come from Cambodia, which beyond colonial loot, also became a veritable minefield of unprotected monumental heritage during the later decades of the 20th century. Its artistic wealth was exploited by a nexus of greedy art collectors, dealers, professionals, and high-profile smugglers in tandem with helpless locals who were struggling to survive the tortures of the Khmer Rouge.
The passing away of Khmer art collector and smuggler Douglas Latchford in 2020, followed by shocking revelations of his collaboration with art historian Emma Bunker in the theft and laundering of Khmer and Thai artworks, has created a storm in the somewhat smug world of art. The modus operandi of this duo, as reported by the Denver Post earlier this month (dpo.st/3V1c1EZ), throws up many issues fundamental to repatriation as recompense.
This is not just a tragic tale of the violation of Khmer artistic heritage, and of vandalised and dismembered body parts of sculptures in stone being carted away with the help of conniving intermediaries. It is equally a sad and true story of the abuse of expert knowledge by art professionals for laundering artworks by falsifying provenance records and authenticating art objects through academic publications and by situating stolen art in reputed museums.
A silver lining to this cloud of deception is that museums now are becoming more receptive to the ethics of repatriation. In 2016, for example, an exquisite 7th century Hari-Hara (Vishnu-Shiva) head, originally from Phnom Da in Cambodia, was returned by the Musee Guimet, Paris, after 130 years, when scientific investigations revealed that it was a perfect fit for the decapitated body of the sculpted deity located in the National Museum in Phnom Penh (photo). The Guimet head was carefully reunited with the body of this composite god in Cambodia and honoured with a grand, ceremonial welcome.
In another development, the curatorial team at the Cleveland Museum of Art collaborated with their counterparts in Phnom Penh to reconstruct the fragmented and misaligned body parts of two 7th century Khmer Krishna-Govardhana sculptures, one in the US and the other in Cambodia. One hopes to see more of the looted art returning to source countries in the future. As for the afterlives of such repatriated objects, that calls for a careful plan of action.
The writer is professor of art history, Department of History, University of Delhi