Ministry of Culture Confirms the Return of Khmer Cultural Objects
AKP Phnom Penh, January 30, 2021 --

The Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts has announced a historic event whereby the family of the collector, the late Douglas Latchford*, is giving his entire extraordinary collection of Khmer antiquities to Cambodia after three years of negotiation.

According to the ministry’s press release dated Jan. 29, a total of over 100 Khmer cultural objects in stone, as well as numerous other Khmer Cultural Properties, will be given to Cambodia. The parties have signed an agreement for the return of Khmer Cultural Properties on Sept. 18, 2020.

These master works date back as far as the 6th century to the post-Angkor period and include Khmer treasures from the royal cities of Koh Ker and Angkor. These antiquities constitute one of the greatest collections of Khmer cultural heritage outside of Cambodia and will be exhibited in Phnom Penh at the National Museum. The first five items, including a stone sculpture of Shiva and Skanda and a bronze ship's figurehead, are due to arrive soon. There will be further announcements of the arrival of other major pieces in different stages.

"The current peace and political stability through the win-win policy of the Royal Government of Cambodia has created an opportunity for the return of the souls of Khmer ancestors, which departed from their motherland. This complex task could be accomplished under the highest guidance and full support from Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo HE, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Cambodia as well as coordination from relevant ministries and many other dignitaries in both public and private institutions. The return to Cambodia of these pieces underlines Cambodia's commitment to the repatriation of its cultural properties to Cambodia. Their return is an incredible event for the Cambodian people and the world," said H.E. Mrs. Phoeurng Sackona, Minister of Culture and Fine Arts.

The ministry will continue to work to restore and preserve Cambodian cultural heritage and looks forward to further collaboration with the family and other collectors across the globe.

On behalf of the Royal Government of Cambodia, H.E. Minister thanked Ms. Nawapan Kriangsak, daughter of the late collector, for her initiative and generosity of spirit in contributing to the celebration of the rich cultural history of Cambodia. She also thanked the staff of the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, Mr. Bradley James Gordon, Mr. Stoven Andrew Homberg and Mr. Charles Webb who for more than three years worked with the ministry’s team on the return of these priceless pieces of Khmer heritage.
https://www.akp.gov.kh/post/detail/226055

* For those of you who are unfamiliar with the late Douglas Latchford, art collecter and trafficker in stolen artifacts, there is an interesting thread on the man and his dealings: newsworthy/art-dealer-arrested-for-sell ... 12099.html , and for a quick read, this post sums it up with The Man Who Pillaged Cambodia : post442101.html#p442101

Nice wooden item from an art gallery from my town, last week pic.

With a Gift of Art, a Daughter Honors, if Not Absolves, Her Father
Douglas Latchford, a scholar of Khmer antiquities who was accused of trafficking in looted artifacts, bequeathed his world-class collection to his daughter. She has returned it to Cambodia.
By Tom Mashberg

Jan. 29, 2021

Nawapan Kriangsak found out as a young girl that running in her father’s apartment was forbidden. Her father, Douglas A.J. Latchford, was perhaps the world’s leading collector of Cambodian antiquities and every corner of his apartment in Bangkok featured a statue of a Khmer deity too valuable to risk to horseplay.

When she went to bed as a child, Ms. Kriangsak said in an interview, the brooding stone faces would haunt her. “Daddy,” she would tell him, “they walk at night.”

Last summer, when her father died at 88, they all became hers — 125 works that make up what is said to be the greatest private collection of artifacts from Cambodia’s 1,000-year-old Khmer Dynasty.

But Ms. Kriangsak also inherited a disquieting legacy.

Mr. Latchford was not only a recognized scholar of Khmer antiquity, he was also someone who had been accused of having trafficked for decades in looted artifacts.

Ms. Kriangsak said the collection, dazzling and unique and valued by some at more than $50 million, loomed as an enormous burden to curate and maintain. So in a gesture that Cambodian officials embrace as supremely generous, she decided to return all of her father’s Khmer objects to that country, where they can be studied by Khmer scholars and shown in a new museum to be built in Phnom Penh.

It is a stunning turn of events for Cambodians who saw so many of their country’s ancient artifacts disappear during the reign of Pol Pot and the surrounding years of civil war. Officials say the objects had been revered for generations and never perceived as sources of wealth or profit.

“Happiness is not enough to sum up my emotions,” said Cambodia’s minister of culture and fine arts, Phoeurng Sackona. “It’s a magical feeling to know they are coming back.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/29/arts ... hford.html

Far out.
It probably would have been impossible to prove the stolen providence of every individual piece if the estate wanted to fight through the courts.
I wonder if that was most, and the best, of his collection.

About f'ing time.

Good news, and great gesture on the part of the daughter.

Douglas Latchford
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Douglas Arthur Joseph Latchford (15 October 1931 - 2 August 2020) was a British adventurer, art dealer, author, and alleged smuggler.

Biography
Latchford was born on 15 October 1931 in Mumbai, India, which was at the time under the British Raj. He was educated at Brighton College in England before returning to India shortly before Independence.

Latchford initially worked in the pharmaceutical industry in Mumbai. He moved to Bangkok in 1956, and in 1963 established a drug distribution company. Latchford also invested profitably in Thailand land development and became a Thai citizen in 1968.[4] He was briefly married to a Thai woman and took a Thai name, Pakpong Kriangsak.[4]

A long-time devotee of the sport of bodybuilding, Latchford became a patron of the sport in Thailand and was the honorary president of the Thai Bodybuilding Association from 2016 until his death.[4]
Antiquities trade

A controversial figure, Latchford was best known as a collector of Cambodian antiquities. According to his obituary in The Diplomat due to his leading position in the illegal antiquities trade of the Khmer Rouge "no single figure looms as large over a nation’s wholesale pillage."[5] Nonetheless, the Cambodian government awarded Latchford a Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Monisaraphon in 2008. He co-authored three books on Khmer antiquities with academic Emma Bunker.[2]

In the 1970s, Latchford became one of the leading suppliers of Cambodian art, selling to museums and private collections in Europe and North America, including the Metropolitan. [2] He kept the best pieces for himself and his personal collection is rumored to rival that of the National Museum of Cambodia.[5]
Latchford liked to see himself as saving works of art that had been abandoned and were at risk during Cambodia's turbulent civil wars, although this viewpoint was contrasted by academics who alleged that several of Latchford's antiquities lacked a clear provenance. Latchford denied any wrongdoing, and gathered his collection long before legislation barring Latchford's practice of buying directly from farmers and dealers in Thailand.[2]
In November 2019, Latchford, by then comatose, was charged by prosecutors in New York, but the case is unlikely to continue due to his death.[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Latchford

Ministry of Culture Confirms the Return of Khmer Cultural Objects
AKP Phnom Penh, January 30, 2021 --

The Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts has announced a historic event whereby the family of the collector, the late Douglas Latchford, is giving his entire extraordinary collection of Khmer antiquities to Cambodia after three years of negotiation.

According to the ministry’s press release dated Jan. 29, a total of over 100 Khmer cultural objects in stone, as well as numerous other Khmer Cultural Properties, will be given to Cambodia. The parties have signed an agreement for the return of Khmer Cultural Properties on Sept. 18, 2020.





These master works date back as far as the 6th century to the post-Angkor period and include Khmer treasures from the royal cities of Koh Ker and Angkor. These antiquities constitute one of the greatest collections of Khmer cultural heritage outside of Cambodia and will be exhibited in Phnom Penh at the National Museum. The first five items, including a stone sculpture of Shiva and Skanda and a bronze ship's figurehead, are due to arrive soon. There will be further announcements of the arrival of other major pieces in different stages.
- AKP

Has anybody found a photographic catalogue of all 100/120 pieces?
It's going to be a cultural gold mine.

PS, Latchford was not only a grand thief and a cultural vandal of the highest order.
This paragon of the High Culture scene was also a dangerous thug who protected his interests with very heavy dudes - including powerful, criminal, corrupt Thai police and military figures.
Journalists and academics who started asking questions were warned off in no uncertain terms.

On the other hand - he must have been a real charmer.
He still has Khmer academics who love him, despite now knowing all.