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)

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CEOCambodiaNews wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 4:42 pm Long read. For those interested in Douglas Latchford, he gets a big mention further down the article*.

Property and Theft: A History of Looting in Southeast Asia
Max Crosbie-JonesFeatures14 September 2021

In Southeast Asia the antiquities trade is under closer scrutiny than ever before, but if the region is to keep hold of and preserve its heritage, there’s a long way further to go

During the early 1920s, the American poet and playwright Arthur Davison Ficke did some opportunistic plundering at the ruins of Angkor Wat. There, while rambling around the ‘finely proportioned and lofty pyramidal temple’ of Takeo, he had come across two dark, basalt sculptures: one of the Hindu deity Shiva ‘standing in a lordly attitude of repose’, the other his ‘delicately but powerfully moulded’ wife Parvati. Astounded at their beauty, he was suddenly overcome with a mixture of awe and acquisitiveness. Before he knew it, Parvati’s loose head – ‘severe and magnificent, noble and sensual, disdainful and exquisite’ – was in his possession.
A sleepless night ensued. ‘My triumph, and the desire to look incessantly at that beautiful cold proud face, kept me awake,’ he wrote in his 1921 account for The North American Review. ‘For me, the might and majesty of Angkor was all concentrated in that head.’ Mostly, though, he felt vile for having committed ‘a terrible and irreparable injury’ to a sublime work of art, analogous in his mind with ‘the Winged Victory which now stands headless at the top of the great stairway of the Louvre’. Come dawn, Parvati was whole again.
https://artreview.com/a-history-of-loot ... opriation/

* For example:
Given the exceptionalism that looters of Khmer treasure have displayed through history, such attempts to sensitise collectors may prove decisive. Latchford excused his predilection for exquisite stone and metal gods and goddesses by saying, as he told the Bangkok Post, ‘they would likely have been shot up for target practice by the Khmer Rouge.’ A believer in reincarnation, he also justified his activities by saying that everything he collected had once belonged to him in a former life.
The French infamous adventurer Andre Malreaux did the same in the 20s. The resistance hero (sic) Andre Malraux and his wife Clara and his friend Louis Chevasson had a scheme to steal artifacts from the Banteay Srei (Angkor Wat) temples to sell in the West.
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Re: NY art dealer arrested for selling stolen Asian artefacts.(Plus Douglas Latchford Death and Updates)

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

cabron wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 6:11 pm
CEOCambodiaNews wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 4:42 pm Long read. For those interested in Douglas Latchford, he gets a big mention further down the article*.

Property and Theft: A History of Looting in Southeast Asia
Max Crosbie-JonesFeatures14 September 2021

In Southeast Asia the antiquities trade is under closer scrutiny than ever before, but if the region is to keep hold of and preserve its heritage, there’s a long way further to go

During the early 1920s, the American poet and playwright Arthur Davison Ficke did some opportunistic plundering at the ruins of Angkor Wat. There, while rambling around the ‘finely proportioned and lofty pyramidal temple’ of Takeo, he had come across two dark, basalt sculptures: one of the Hindu deity Shiva ‘standing in a lordly attitude of repose’, the other his ‘delicately but powerfully moulded’ wife Parvati. Astounded at their beauty, he was suddenly overcome with a mixture of awe and acquisitiveness. Before he knew it, Parvati’s loose head – ‘severe and magnificent, noble and sensual, disdainful and exquisite’ – was in his possession.
A sleepless night ensued. ‘My triumph, and the desire to look incessantly at that beautiful cold proud face, kept me awake,’ he wrote in his 1921 account for The North American Review. ‘For me, the might and majesty of Angkor was all concentrated in that head.’ Mostly, though, he felt vile for having committed ‘a terrible and irreparable injury’ to a sublime work of art, analogous in his mind with ‘the Winged Victory which now stands headless at the top of the great stairway of the Louvre’. Come dawn, Parvati was whole again.
https://artreview.com/a-history-of-loot ... opriation/

* For example:
Given the exceptionalism that looters of Khmer treasure have displayed through history, such attempts to sensitise collectors may prove decisive. Latchford excused his predilection for exquisite stone and metal gods and goddesses by saying, as he told the Bangkok Post, ‘they would likely have been shot up for target practice by the Khmer Rouge.’ A believer in reincarnation, he also justified his activities by saying that everything he collected had once belonged to him in a former life.
The French infamous adventurer Andre Malreaux did the same in the 20s. The resistance hero (sic) Andre Malraux and his wife Clara and his friend Louis Chevasson had a scheme to steal artifacts from the Banteay Srei (Angkor Wat) temples to sell in the West.
Malraux is mentioned in the article. It's worth reading.
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Re: NY art dealer arrested for selling stolen Asian artefacts.(Plus Douglas Latchford Death and Updates)

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UPDATE
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Cambodia News (Phnom Penh): According to the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, on September 29, 2021, after an agreement made between Cambodia and Douglas Latchford's widow on the return of the stolen and lost cultural artifacts to their origin, around 100 artifacts made out of stone and bronze have been agreed to be given back to the National Museum of Cambodia.

During the first transition, five sculptures have been returned to Cambodia such as a stone sculpture of Shiva and Skanda in the Koh Ker style (mid 10th century), a sculpture of a bronze boat ornament (Karuda head), Bayon style (late 12th century), a stone sculpture of Ardhanarishvara, Koh Ker style (10th century), a stone sculpture of Pracha Barami, Bayon style (late 12th century), and a bronze sculpture of a male deity, Baphoun style (late 11th century).
They sculptures have been transferred to the National Museum of Cambodia for technical inspection before being exposed to the public.
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Re: NY art dealer arrested for selling stolen Asian artefacts.(Plus Douglas Latchford Death and Updates)

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The 'Pandora Papers' investigation has linked the Met museum and the British Museum with suspected looted Cambodian antiquities
Francis Agustin | Publié le 04/10/2021 à 11h51 | Mis à jour le 04/10/2021 à 11h52
Antiquities suspected to have been looted from Cambodia by the art dealer Douglas Latchford appeared in top museums, The Washington Post said.
- The Met is one of several top museums to have displayed looted Cambodian antiquities, a report says.
- The antiquities are linked to the indicted art dealer Douglas Latchford, The Washington Post said.
- The findings are based on the Pandora Papers investigation into offshore tax havens.


The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City is one of several prominent museums to have displayed looted Cambodian antiquities, according to a report by The Washington Post.

The Post said that it and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) embarked on a "treasure hunt" for antiquities suspected to have been looted from Cambodia by the late art dealer Douglas Latchford. The hunt came after The Post and the ICIJ investigated 11.9 million documents dubbed the Pandora Papers.

Latchford was indicted by the Justice Department in 2019 over allegations that he trafficked in looted Cambodian antiquities. He denied these claims until his death in 2020.

The Post reported that Latchford and his family established trusts in tax havens shortly after investigators began linking him to the looted artifacts. The newspaper said that Latchford used an offshore trust for transactions involving the looted Cambodian items.

"Dozens" of looted artifacts tied to the indicted dealer remain in prominent collections, the Post said, also naming the British Museum.

The museums told the Post that they took precautions to ensure acquired items weren't stolen, adding that provenance standards had changed over time. They didn't immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.

Since allegations against Latchford came to light, some museums have made efforts to return stolen Cambodian artifacts. The Met sent back two tenth-century stone statues in 2013 that had been looted from Koh Ker, Cambodia. Latchford's daughter, Nawapan Kriangsak, also led an effort following her father's death to return $50 million worth of antiquities to Cambodia.

The Post is expected to soon publish further details about its investigation into how offshore companies are used to conceal wrongdoing in the global art trade.
https://www.businessinsider.fr/us/pando ... es-2021-10
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Re: NY art dealer arrested for selling stolen Asian artefacts.(Plus Douglas Latchford Death and Updates)

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The Pandora Papers Leak Reveals How the Late Dealer Douglas Latchford Used Offshore Accounts to Sell Looted Cambodian Antiquities
More revelations are likely forthcoming as journalists comb through the leak.
Sarah Cascone, October 5, 2021
Image
A bronze decoration from a late 12th century boat from Douglas Latchford's collection being repatriated to Cambodia. Photo by Matthew Hollow, courtesy of the Royal Government of Cambodia.

The Pandora Papers, a trove of 11.9 million documents leaked on Sunday, are revealing the shadowy business dealings of some the world’s wealthiest and most powerful people. Among the prominent names from the art world to emerge is that of late antiquities dealer Douglas Latchford, a leading Cambodian art scholar who, the papers show, used offshore trusts to sell looted art.

In 2019, just months before his death, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York had charged Latchford with trafficking Cambodian antiquities. He was accused of falsifying invoices, provenance documents, and shipping information to smuggle illicitly obtained artworks internationally.

When authorities got wind of Latchford’s shady dealings, it appears he attempted to better conceal his transactions by establishing trusts in tax havens, reports the Washington Post. (The newspaper is planning a series of articles detailing further contents of the leak.)

In February, Latchford’s daughter, Nawapan Kriangsak (formerly Julia Ellen Latchford Copleston), announced that her father’s $50 million collection of Khmer antiquities would be repatriated to Cambodia. The 125 pieces were considered the most important collection of ancient Cambodian art in private hands, although many were suspected of having been stolen.

Some of the world’s leading museums are now coming under increased scrutiny over works in their collections that were once owned by the late collector. The Denver Art Museum has six, the British Museum has five, the Cleveland Museum of Art has three, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art has 12 pieces that list Latchford in the provenance, if not as the donor outright.

In 2013, the Met previously repatriated to Cambodia a pair of statues partially gifted by Latchford. Known as the “Kneeling Attendants,” the figures had been looted from the Koh Ker temple complex.

In light of the new revelations, the museum is now “reviewing the pieces that came to the Met’s collection via Latchford and his associates,” a spokesperson for the museum told Hyperallergic. “As we continue our research, we will engage with the government of Cambodia as needed, as we have had a strong and productive partnership with their cultural leaders in the past.”

In terms of the volume of data (2.9 terabytes, to be precise), the Pandora Papers are the largest offshore finance leak in history, exceeding the 11.5 million documents in the Panama Papers, published in April 2016, and the 1.4 terabytes of data in the Paradise Papers in 2017.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in Washington, D.C., obtained the Pandora Papers data from an unidentified source. The documents from 14 firms linked to secret offshore accounts belong to billionaires, celebrities, world leaders, and powerful companies.
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/pando ... rd-2017069
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Re: NY art dealer arrested for selling stolen Asian artefacts.(Plus Douglas Latchford Death and Updates)

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Cambodia celebrates return of ancient Khmer sculptures from Douglas Latchford collection
Collector’s daughter has promised to return more than 100 important sculptures acquired by her father
Image
Ancient Khmer sculptures from the Douglas Latchford collection, which were returned to Cambodia by the collector’s daughter Julia. Photograph: Cambodian ministry for Culture
Anne Davies
Thu 7 Oct 2021 00.48 BST

Cambodian officials have celebrated the return of five important ancient Khmer sculptures from the collection of Douglas Latchford, among more than 100 his daughter Julia promised to return after his death last year.

Latchford, a businessman who lived between the UK and Thailand, was a world expert on Khmer antiquities and a prolific collector, but in 2019 he was indicted in the US on charges of smuggling and forging documents. He died in 2020 before reaching trial.

Latchford came under scrutiny in 2011 after US authorities took legal action to stop the sale by Sotheby’s of a 10th-century Cambodian sandstone sculpture, the Duryodhana bondissant, worth millions, which was alleged to have been stolen from Prasat Chen, a temple at the 10th-century Khmer capital, Koh Ker.

More questions were raised when New York dealer Nancy Wiener was indicted in 2016 for possessing stolen property. Two of the artefacts were sourced from Latchford. On Thursday Wiener pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and possession of stolen property in connection with allegedly looted artefacts from India and south-east Asia. Some of the items were sold to galleries in Australia, and in some cases have since been returned to their country of origin.

Julia Latchford, also known as Nawapan Kriangsak, told the New York Times in January: “Despite what people say or accuse against Douglas, my father started his collection in a very different era, and his world has changed … I would like everything that Douglas assembled be kept where people around the world can enjoy it and understand it. There is no better place than Cambodia, where the people revere these objects not just for their art or history, but for their religious significance.”

Bradley Gordon, the lawyer representing the Cambodian Ministry for Culture, said on Wednesday: “We signed the agreement with Julia Latchford on 29 September 2020. Exactly a year later these five masterpieces have come back to Cambodia.”

The five sculptures returned last week could soon be joined by the rest of the Latchford collection, with the Cambodian government expected to request their physical return soon.

The National Gallery of Australia is also working towards the return of an important Cham sculpture after discovering its links to Latchford.

The NGA confirmed on Wednesday it was awaiting some final research about the exact origin of a Cham bronze trio bought by the gallery for $US1.5m in 2011. An announcement is expected within weeks.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... collection
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Re: NY art dealer arrested for selling stolen Asian artefacts.(Plus Douglas Latchford Death and Updates)

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

The Australian link to the Latchford collection:

How artefacts linked to indicted dealer ended up in Australian galleries
Pandora papers shed new light on dealings of alleged antiquities smuggler Douglas Latchford
Anne Davies
Last modified on Wed 6 Oct 2021 07.34 BST

In 2017, Douglas Latchford was under pressure. Once feted by the Cambodian government and acclaimed as an international authority on south-east Asian antiquities, the Thai-based collector was now the subject of an investigation in the US for allegedly smuggling artefacts on a grand scale.

With his reputation under scrutiny, Latchford continued to discuss the sale and exchange of antiquities with dealers around the world, including a little-known gallery based in Sydney. He was ultimately indicted by the New York district attorney in 2019 on charges of smuggling and falsification of records, but died in August 2020 before going to trial.

Now the hunt is on by US and Cambodian authorities to find, investigate and, if possible, repatriate hundreds of items Latchford sold, often via dealers, to collectors and major galleries, including the National Gallery of Australia.

Clouds began to gather around Latchford as early as 2013, when first Sotheby’s and then New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art agreed to return works obtained via Latchford to their country of origin.

The 2019 indictment alleged that Latchford, AKA Pakpong Kriangsak, engaged in an elaborate scheme to falsify the provenance of artefacts he was selling and evade American laws that gave teeth to international treaties intended to prevent the export of ancient cultural artefacts.

From about 2000 to about 2012, Latchford “engaged in a fraudulent scheme to sell looted Cambodian antiquities on the international art market”, the indictment said. He allegedly created false documentation misrepresenting the prior ownership of the antiquities to conceal that they were “the product of looting, unauthorized excavation, and illicit smuggling”.

In 1970 a landmark Unesco convention on the protection of cultural property came into force, prohibiting the illicit export and trade of artefacts from religious and cultural sites after that date.

Bradley Gordon, a lawyer acting for the Cambodian culture ministry, said a huge number of items were potentially involved, not just those linked to Latchford.

“Our approach is that all of the sacred statues and other antiquities from the Angkor and pre-Angkor period that have been taken out from Cambodia, particularly since 1970, have been removed illegally,” he said. “We are tracking the ownership and provenance of Khmer antiquities worldwide, and we are calling for the return of all of them that are not properly owned and provenanced.”

The Pandora papers, a collection of millions of documents obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, have revealed new details of how Latchford allegedly used offshore trusts to squirrel away millions from the trade in mainly Khmer artefacts. But Cambodian and other authorities in south-east Asia are less concerned with where the money went and more interested in how to recover the artefacts.

In February, to much fanfare, Latchford’s daughter, Julia Latchford – also known as Nawapan Kriangsak – handed more than 100 items, which made up her father’s extensive collection of Khmer artefacts, to the Cambodian government. But many others linked to him remain in galleries around the world. The National Gallery of Australia (NGA) and the Art Gallery of NSW are among those that have faced questions about the provenance of works they hold.

The problems for the NGA go back to the 1980s when it rapidly expanded its south-east Asian collection. To date, most attention has focused on items it purchased from a New York dealer, Subhash Kapoor, and his gallery, Art of the Past. These included a 600-year-old bronze dancing Shiva, which was the centrepiece of the NGA’s collection. It was allegedly stolen from a temple in Tamil Nadu, and was returned by the Australian government in 2014.

Kapoor is under indictment in New York, accused of operating a smuggling ring of thousands of looted antiquities over 30 years. He denies the charges. The allegations against him prompted a 2015 review by the former Australian high court judge Susan Crennan, which raised more questions about many pieces in the NGA.

Image
Among those Crennan found had a “problematic” provenance was a ninth-century Cham bronze trio believed to have been looted and sold via Douglas Latchford. When it was bought by the gallery for $US1.5m in 2011, the 50cm-tall bronze Padmapani and two smaller attendants was described by the NGA’s director at the time, Ron Radford, as “perhaps the most extraordinary work acquired this year”.

After years of investigation, the NGA is on the verge of returning the trio. “These works are the subject of a significant live investigation which is nearing its conclusion,” a spokesperson for the gallery said.

The NGA has confirmed that at least the main figure in the trio, the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara Padmapani, has links to Latchford. The gallery is attempting to confirm which temple it came from and to determine which country it should be returned to, as the Cham kingdom spanned parts of modern Vietnam as well as Cambodia.
Full article: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/o ... -galleries
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Re: NY art dealer arrested for selling stolen Asian artefacts.(Plus Douglas Latchford Death and Updates)

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

Cleveland Museum of Art Owns Cambodian Sculptures That May Have been Looted, WaPo Investigation Reveals
Posted By Sam Allard on Fri, Oct 8, 2021 at 2:47 PM
Image
Shamvara and A Dakini, c. 1100. Cambodia, Angkor, 11th century. Bronze; overall: 14.8 cm (5 13/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund 1985.92 - CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART DIGITAL COLLECTION

As part of the global investigation emerging from the Pandora Papers, The Washington Post has reported on Englishman Douglas Latchford, a collector of Cambodian antiquities who authorities say profited handsomely off the pillaging of temples and other religious sites throughout Southeast Asia. According to the story, three pieces connected to Latchford are now owned by the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Latchford's alleged illicit trafficking was "part of a decades-long ransacking of Cambodian sites that ranks as one of the most devastating cultural thefts of the 20th century," the Post reported.

Latchford died in 2020 at the age of 88, before he could stand trial, but not before he'd set up multiple offshore trusts to shield his assets, trusts of which ilk are designed to protect the world's elites from taxation and investigation. It was to expose offshore accounts such as these that the Pandora Papers were leaked to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

The Cleveland Museum of Art was mentioned in the story as one of several institutions that now owns pieces with connections to Latchford. According to the investigation, the Cleveland Museum owns three pieces linked directly to Latchford and two linked to one or more of his associates.

Image
Responding to questions from Scene, the Cleveland Museum of Art said that none of the three pieces with Latchford ties had been purchased directly from him, though his name does appear in the pieces' ownership history, known as its provenance.

The three pieces are a first century-BC "male head" sculpture from Southeast Asia, and two bronze sculptures, pictured above, which depict tantric Buddhist deities "trampling the personifications of the afflictions that keep beings cycling around the world of samsara, moving from one unhappy birth, death, and rebirth to another."

All three pieces were purchased by the museum from the London auction house Spink & Son, which was described in prosecuting documents as a Latchford "collaborator." Prosecutors argued that the auction house helped sell Latchford's looted antiquities and was aware of his designs to create false documentation for them. (No one from Spink & Son, which is now owned by Christie's, has been criminally charged, and they maintained in a statement to the Post that they would never sell items "it had reason to believe were stolen.)

The Cleveland Museum had no further information on the pieces in question, but noted that the museum had "a strong, collaborative relationship" with Cambodia and a Memorandum of Understanding with the National Museum of Cambodia in Phnom Penh.
Full article: https://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-he ... on-reveals
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Re: NY art dealer arrested for selling stolen Asian artefacts.(Plus Douglas Latchford Death and Updates)

Post by Railroad »

All these sculptures & stuff....I mean, they're a bit shite, innit.
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Re: NY art dealer arrested for selling stolen Asian artefacts.(Plus Douglas Latchford Death and Updates)

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Asian Art Museum reckons with Cambodian antiquities of disputed provenance
Pandora Papers revelations accelerate culture shift at museums near and far

Veronica Irwin Oct. 14, 2021 1:30 p.m.

On Oct. 3, the International Consortium of Journalists announced the receipt of millions of leaked documents detailing the offshore bank accounts of politicians, business leaders, billionaires and other powerful people. Investigative reporters have used these documents to trace not only the movement of money through secretive financial dealings, but also the covert owners and traders of private jets, yachts, mansions, artworks and antiquities. These leaked documents are called the Pandora Papers.

One of the men whose financial dealings are detailed in the Pandora Papers is Douglas Latchford, a Brit who was indicted by U.S. authorities on multiple counts, but died before the trial last year. He allegedly sold and personally collected hundreds of stolen Cambodian antiquities, though many have never been traced to their final destination.

The Pandora Papers revealed where 43 relics linked to Douglas Latchford and his associates are held today. Two pieces linked to Latchford’s associates in ICIJ’s report are on display at the San Francisco Asian Art Museum.

The museum’s deputy director of arts and programs, Robert Mintz, said in an interview that the Pandora Papers’ findings weren’t a surprise. Instead, the findings mainstream a culture shift that the museum has been adapting to for several years.

“Museums that hold antiquities are evaluating what it is we decide to feature about a work,” said Mintz. “It’s becoming more and more relevant to people to think about how objects move and how their meaning changes as they move from one place or one ownership to another.”

Image
Robert Mintz, the Asian Art Museum’s deputy director of art and programs, poses with a lion scuplture from Cambodia, which was acquired from a private collector and dates back to between 1150 and 1225. It is one of two pieces identified as a stolen artifact in the leaked Pandora Papers. (Kevin N. Hume/The Examiner)

Latchford has a complicated history in art history circles. Mintz said as a young art historian he was taught that Latchford was a “passionate supporter of the arts and culture of Cambodia.” Later, and particularly as evidence of Latchford’s alleged looting and theft came to the fore, Mintz said he came to “realize that even passionate supporters can be destructive.”

Mintz said perspectives are changing about several Cambodian pieces in question at the Asian Art Museum. A lion, which guarded approaches to a Khmer temple, came from the auction house Spink and Sons in London, which Latchford traded through for decades. Second, a golden dedicatory plaque, likely from Cambodia, but with uncertain origins, came from the gallery of Doris Weiner in New York. Weiner’s daughter pleaded guilty to falsifying documents to hide the murky histories of Southeast Asian treasures earlier this month. Mintz said that when the pieces were acquired decades ago, the museum assumed they left their countries of origin in a legal manner.
Full article: https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/asian-a ... rovenance/
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