NY art dealer arrested for selling stolen Asian artefacts.(Plus Douglas Latchford Death and Updates)

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Re: NY art dealer arrested for selling stolen Asian artefacts.(Plus Douglas Latchford Death and Updates)

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

Of stolen art and looters' crafty craft
Last Updated: Dec 17, 2022, 10:27 PM IST
Synopsis
Recent years have witnessed an increasing demand for the repatriation of looted art objects globally. Even as the British Museum in London continues to be in denial of its legacy of loot, from the Elgin marbles from Parthenon in Greece to the Elliot marbles from Amaravati in India, the idea of Universal Museums of the West continues to be hotly debated and challenged.

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.

Read more at:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/op ... aign=cppst
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Re: NY art dealer arrested for selling stolen Asian artefacts.(Plus Douglas Latchford Death and Updates)

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

Revelations in Cambodia looting scandal name ‘scholar’ at Denver Art Museum as accomplice to disgraced dealer Douglas Latchford
Researcher Emma Bunker aided the notorious looter in sourcing and selling Southeast Asian antiquities
David D'Arcy
5 January 2023
[excerpts}

Latchford found a friend in Emma Bunker, who died in 2021, aged 90. Bunker wrote on Chinese and central Asian art, collaborating on three books with Latchford and travelling to sites in Cambodia and Thailand. Works in those books with bogus provenances brought high prices when Latchford sold them. Bunker was thanked publicly by trusting officials in Phnom Penh for her work on behalf of Cambodian culture. Researchers in Cambodian and Thailand now use the books to trace missing objects.

Latchford and Bunker’s provenances were also questioned by former looters who recalled pillaging sites as Khmer Rouge child soldiers and spoke of being paid by Latchford for objects.

Image
Emma Cadwalader Bunker

Bunker’s emails, excerpted by reporter Sam Tabachnik of the Denver Post, mixed niceties toward “dear” Latchford with derision for curators and others who brought them unwanted attention and scrutiny.

Already in 1972, Bunker published an article tracking sculptures known as the Prakhon Chai bronzes to the Plai Bat II temple in north-east Thailand, probably with Latchford’s help. Not a single Prakhon Chai sculpture remains in Thailand, although Bunker’s writings helped boost their prices in the antiquities market. Thailand wants museums to return them.

Bunker was known to museum specialists and dealers, yet her name rarely surfaced beyond those groups. In the US government’s detailed forfeiture complaint of November 2021, issued when the DAM agreed to return the four looted statues to Cambodia, a person referred to only as “The Scholar”, is described as providing Latchford with cover and false provenances for looted sculptures.

“Over the years, the Scholar assisted Latchford on many occasions by verifying or vouching for the proffered provenance of Khmer antiquities that Latchford was trying to sell,” the complaint reads. “The Scholar” has now been confirmed, by the Denver Post, as Bunker.
In full: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2023/01 ... -latchford
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Re: NY art dealer arrested for selling stolen Asian artefacts.(Plus Douglas Latchford Death and Updates)

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

77 Cambodian Pieces of Jewellery Collection Return Home
AKP Phnom Penh, February 20, 2023 --
Image
Seventy-Seven (77) Cambodian pieces of jewellery collection have returned home from the United Kingdom, according to a press release of the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts issued this afternoon.

The handover of the jewellery collection took place in the UK recently in the presence of a Cambodian delegation led by H.E. Hun Many, Chairman of the National Assembly's 7th Commission on Education, Youth, Sports, Cults and Religious Affairs, Culture and Tourism, Cambodian Ambassador to UK, members of the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) Southeast Asia Department, the Art and Antiques Unit of the Metroplitan Police and Art Council England.

The Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts on behalf of the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) reached an accord with the family of the late Douglas Latchford in September 2020 wherein all Cambodian artefacts in the possession of the Latchford family will be returned to Cambodia.

Image
Image
Image
The collection, which arrived in Cambodia on Feb. 17, 2023, include gold and other precious metal pieces from the Pre-Angkorian and Angkorian period such as crowns, necklaces, bracelets, belts, earrings and amulets, a number of which have been featured in the book Khmer Gold: Gifts of the Gods, co-authored by Mrs. Emma C. Bunker and Mr. Douglas A.J. Latchford (2008). Many of the objects have never been seen by the public before.

“The RGC expresses its appreciation to the Government of the UK for its goodwill and cooperation in facilitating the return of these artefacts to the Royal Government and the people of Cambodia, which demonstrates the successful strategy of the RGC in close cooperation with other countries around the world,” the press release underlined.
By Lim Nary
Full article: https://www.akp.gov.kh/post/detail/272604
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Re: NY art dealer arrested for selling stolen Asian artefacts.(Plus Douglas Latchford Death and Updates)

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

More details from ARTnews:
Cambodia Receives Over 70 Rare Gold Artifacts in Deal with Estate of Disagraced Antiquities Dealer
February 21, 2023 4:32pm
Image The late Douglas Latchford
A group of more than 70 gold relics linked to Cambodian royalty that once passed through the hands of disgraced antiquities dealer Douglas A.J. Latchford, who was accused of trafficking looted artifacts and died in 2020, have been returned to the country, the New York Times reported Monday.

The items, previously stored in London, were returned under an agreement with Latchford’s estate, the Times reported. The estate, overseen by the late dealer’s daughter and legal heir Nawapan Kriangsak, returned 77 items of ancient gold jewelry deriving from the Angkor Empire. The items were officially accepted by the country’s culture ministry representatives in Phnom Penh on Monday.

The return was part of a larger deal that Latchford’s estate negotiated over three years with the country. First announced last February, the deal saw the estate repatriate a collection of Khmer antiquities worth $50 million, which are suspected to contain looted and smuggled items. Latchford was charged in 2019 with selling artifacts with falsified ownership records.

Other works with Cambodian origins that passed from Latchford to collectors and museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Denver Art Museum have also been returned following flags raised about Latchford’s suspect sourcing of artifacts. Latchford and his business dealing were identified in the 2020 Pandora Paper investigations that examined the use of off-shore tax havens.

The Angkorian items returned this week include a gold hammered crown, headdress, necklaces and earrings, among other wares. The objects are believd to have been taken from ancient temples and burial grounds between the 1970s and early 2000s, when the country was in the midst of a genocide and political unrest.
https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/a ... 234636671/
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Re: NY art dealer arrested for selling stolen Asian artefacts.(Plus Douglas Latchford Death and Updates)

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

Cambodian Treasures Foundation – The Importance of Returning Stolen Cambodian Antiquities & Artifact
10/03/2023
B2B Cambodia spoke with Bradley Gordon & Steven Heimberg at the recent 2023 AmCham AGM which was also the Charity Gala Dinner to raise funds to return stolen Cambodian antiquities and treasures back to the Kingdom.

Bradley Gordon is the Founder of Edenbridge Asia which advises and works with the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts on reclaiming and returning cultural properties to Cambodia.

Steven Heimberg is a physician and an attorney from a leading Californian law firm who has been assisting with the legalities of returning the treasures.

We hear from both on the importance of raising awareness for the Cambodian Treasures Foundation, with Gordon saying “I think this was an extremely meaningful and historic event, especially for the relationship between the United States and Cambodia”.

https://www.b2b-cambodia.com/articles/c ... artifacts/
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Re: NY art dealer arrested for selling stolen Asian artefacts.(Plus Douglas Latchford Death and Updates)

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

Cambodia Officially Celebrates the Return of Khmer Artifacts
AKP Phnom Penh, March 17, 2023 --
Image
The Kingdom of Cambodia this morning celebrated the return of Khmer artifacts under the presidency of Prime Minister Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo HE.

According to the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts’ press release, under an agreement on Sept. 18, 2020 between the ministry, representing the Royal Government of Cambodia and the family of Douglas Latchford, all Cambodian artifacts held by the Latchford's family shall be returned to Cambodia. In addition, many important Khmer cultural treasures in the possession of museums and private collectors (some confiscated by US authorities, and some returned by individuals) have been returned to Cambodia from the US and the UK.

Recently, 77 large and small pieces of Khmer ancient gold and precious metal jewelries were brought from the UK to Cambodia on Feb. 17, 2023 by the Cambodian team led by H.E. Hun Many on behalf of the Royal Government of Cambodia through cooperation with the UK and support of the Cambodian Embassy to the UK. Furthermore, the ministry has been working with the US Government and other countries, as well as through negotiations with institutions and private collectors, in order to bring more Khmer artifacts back to Cambodia.

Amongst the returned Khmer cultural treasures, there are some important Hindu and Buddhist statues, as well as ancient jewelries from the pre-Angkor and Angkor periods, especial the large stone statues such as: Shiva and Skanda, Skanda on a Peacock and Ganesh originated from the Koh Ker site, a former capital of the Khmer Empire in the 10th century A.D. Koh Ker which had been the target of large-scale theft for many years during the period of civil war and insecurity.
Excerpts from https://www.akp.gov.kh/post/detail/274194
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Re: NY art dealer arrested for selling stolen Asian artefacts.(Plus Douglas Latchford Death and Updates)

Post by Anchor Moy »

This is an article centred around the Met Museum in New York, but all the major western museums were systematic receivers of looted artifacts. What a bunch of thieves and hypocrites!

‘The stuff was illegally dug up’: New York’s Met Museum sees reputation erode over collection practices
An investigation identified hundreds of artifacts linked to indicted or convicted traffickers. What does this mean for the future of museums?
Last modified on Mon 20 Mar 2023 09.01 GMT

In the village of Bungmati, Nepal, above an ancient spring, stand two stone shrines and a temple. On the side of one of those shrines is a large hole where a statue of Shreedhar Vishnu, the Hindu protector god, used to be.

Carved by master artisans nearly a thousand years ago, the sandstone relic was carefully tended and worshipped by local people. Sometime in the early 1980s that tradition abruptly ended when thieves removed the 20-inch statue. A Bungmati resident, Buddha Ratna Tuladhar, recalls how the community was “overwhelmed by melancholy” over its loss. “We kept hoping the statue would be restored, but it never was,” he said.

About a decade after the theft, and on the other side of the world, a wealthy American collector donated the statue to New York City’s celebrated Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it would remain for nearly 30 years, until an anonymous Facebook account called the Lost Arts of Nepal finally identified it, in 2021. Although the Met has since removed the statue from its publicly listed collection, signaling that it may soon be returned, the damage to the Bungmati community was already done.

In the antiquities trade, the Met’s reputation has also begun to erode. Over the last two years, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and its news media partners have reported on the Met’s acquisition practices – often in relation to a trove of items obtained from Cambodia in an era when that country’s cultural heritage was sold off wholesale to the highest bidder. A broader examination of the Met’s antiquities collection, conducted by ICIJ, Finance Uncovered, L’Espresso and other media partners over recent months, raises new concerns over the origin of the museum’s inventory of ancient statues, friezes and other relics.

New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art opened in 1880, long after its counterparts in Paris and London. The museum started out with a purchase of 174 paintings, placing it far from the scale of France’s palatial Louvre’s galleries already holding thousands of works, many inherited from the nation’s colonial exploits.

Even in the 1960s, the largest museum in North America was still playing catch-up. The Met’s leadership aggressively sought major acquisitions and took a casual approach to, and even at times embraced, antiquities smuggling as a mainstay of the museum’s sourcing.
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/202 ... acts-theft
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Re: NY art dealer arrested for selling stolen Asian artefacts.(Plus Douglas Latchford Death and Updates)

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

Opinion
Met Museum Kicked Me Out for Praying to My Ancestral Gods
My danced prayer to looted Cambodian antiquities was too much for the New York museum.
Sophiline Cheam-Shapiro 12 hours ago
Image
In February of 2023, the producers of the podcast series Dynamite Doug, which examines the connection between The Met and the disgraced dealer Douglas Latchford, invited me to participate in a panel discussion in New York City.
When they asked me if I’d be willing to dance before the looted antiquities on display at The Met so that they could share a video recording of it during the panel, I agreed, in part, because it was something I’d already done.
Ten years earlier, visiting the same gallery on my own, I had taken off my shoes and danced a prayer for the gods that stood on pedestals before me. These are religious objects created by my ancestors for this very purpose.
Excerpt and screenshot from: https://hyperallergic.com/809442/met-mu ... tral-gods/
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Re: NY art dealer arrested for selling stolen Asian artefacts.(Plus Douglas Latchford Death and Updates)

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

Manhattan DA’s Office Returns 11th Century Antiquity to Cambodia
March 31, 2023 5:50pm

Image
A Khmer Lintel on a white pedestal that was recently repatriated back to Cambodia.
After being smuggled into Thailand, this Khmer Lintel was sold to an American collector.

Courtesy of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office is currently in the news for indicting former President Donald Trump, but it also continues to repatriates looted and stolen antiquities.

On March 31, the office of Alvin L. Bragg Jr. announced the repatriation of the Khmer Lintel, an 11th century structural element that was looted from Cambodia during the 1990s and smuggled into Thailand. The Khmer lintel formed the support for a temple door and featured carvings of celestial deities dancing together, known as apsaras in Hindu and Buddhist cultures.

According to the DA’s office, after the lintel arrived in Bangkok, it was sold by a local dealer to an American collector and remained in a private collection in Manhattan until its seizure last October.
https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/m ... 234662978/
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Re: NY art dealer arrested for selling stolen Asian artefacts.(Plus Douglas Latchford Death and Updates)

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

Lori Trahan asks DOJ to investigate Met’s Cambodian artifacts
13 pieces alleged to be stolen
PUBLISHED: May 11, 2023 at 8:54 p.m. | UPDATED: May 11, 2023 at 9:39 p.m.
Image(AP Photo/Heng Sinith)
LOWELL — U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan has asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate whether New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of the largest and most prestigious art museums in the world, is in possession of stolen art.

The Met’s Southeast Asian Art Gallery 249 contains 13 pieces that were sold to the museum by disgraced art dealer Dennis Latchford, who was charged in 2019 with wire fraud conspiracy and other crimes related to illegally selling stolen artifacts from Cambodia.

He died in 2020 before the DOJ concluded its case, so the indictment was dismissed.

Trahan is pressing the museum for an update on its internal investigation on the provenance of the artifacts, and she has set a deadline of May 25 for the Met to provide a public accounting of their findings.

“We’ve alerted the DOJ,” Trahan said by phone Thursday afternoon. “My request is very straightforward. I want the results of the Met’s internal investigation to be made public. I’ve asked for a thorough update on its investigation, a deadline to make a determination on the provenance of these artifacts, and a commitment from the Met to return the pieces to the people of Cambodia if they were stolen.”

The representative was named co-chair of the Congressional Cambodia Caucus in January, and said her work on the caucus is informed by the Cambodian-American residents in the 3rd Congressional District.
https://www.lowellsun.com/2023/05/11/lo ... artifacts/
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