The
return of the sculptures to their countries of origin would
empty the Met's collection of art associated with Douglas
Latchford, a dealer charged with smuggling looted artifacts from
Southeast Asia, the museum said.
The U.S. Attorney's office in the Southern District of New York
indicted Latchford for supplying major auction houses, art
dealers and museums with looted antiquities and falsifying
documentation about where he obtained the art. Latchford died at
his home in Bangkok in 2020, the New York Times reported.
"The Met has been diligently working with Cambodia and the U.S.
Attorney's Office for years to resolve questions regarding these
works of art, and new information that arose from this process
made it clear that we should initiate the return of this group
of sculptures," Max Hollein, the Met's director and chief
executive officer, said in a statement.
The art being repatriated was produced between the 9th and 14th
centuries in the Angkorian period, and reflects Hindu and
Buddhist religious influences, the museum said.
Important Cambodian archeological sites from the ancient Khmer
empire were targeted by looters during the country's extended
period of civil unrest, from the mid-1960s to the early 1990s.
Artifacts entered the international art market through an
organized looting network and smuggling process that Latchford
used to obtain his art, the U.S. Attorney's office said in its
indictment.
The repatriation of the artwork follows the Met's pledge to
review the works in its collection with an eye towards cultural
property and the museum's past collecting practices, the museum
statement said.
U.S. authorities have spent more than a decade working on
locating artifacts looted from Cambodia and have made previous
returns from various sources.
(Reporting by Gabriella Borter; Editing by Sandra Maler)
[© 2023 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2022 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may
not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
![](column_spacer.png)
|
|