NY art dealer arrested for selling stolen Asian artefacts.(Plus Douglas Latchford Death and Updates)
Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2016 10:17 am
One of the world's major dealers in South-East Asian art, Nancy Weiner of New York, was arrested on Wednesday for allegedly selling millions of dollars worth of stolen artefacts. It is believed that Weiner was buying artefacts from temple looters in Cambodia, Thailand and India and then selling them on to major auction houses under a false pedigree. This crack down on illicit trade in stolen South-East Asian treasures has shaken up the art world. Cambodia is now hoping to recover valuable Angkorian-era artefacts from Weiner's gallery.
The story cited below of one looted Cambodian artefact sold by Weiner gives an illustration of her modus operandi.
[This example was taken from the blog Chasing Aphrodite, which specialises in the hunt for looted antiquities.]
The Baphuon Shiva
https://chasingaphrodite.com/2016/12/21 ... on-houses/When Wiener consigned a Cambodian sculpture of 11th century Shiva at a 2011 auction at Sotheby’s, the auction house noted that cracks in the sculpture “had been dressed up with plaint splatters to mask repairs” – a clear sign of looting, according to the complaint.
Sotheby’s nevertheless accepted Wiener’s word that it had been out of Cambodia since 1968 and required no documentation from the dealer to support the claim. When selling Lot 29 at the March 24, 2011 sale, Sotheby’s described it as coming from a “Private English Collection, acquired 1960s.” “This exceptional figure exemplifies the highest achievements of the Baphuon School and is arguably amongst the best of its kind,” the catalog noted. It sold for $578,500.
In fact, there was no English collection, the complaint alleges. Seized emails show Wiener and a co-conspiritor (“an antiquities dealer based in London and Bangkok”) had acquired the sculpture “direct from a supplier, and not through a dealer” for half its market price. They sent it to London to be “cleaned, put together and mounted,” all evidence, the complaint alleges, that it had been recently looted.
I’ve asked Sotheby’s attorney (and former federal prosecutor) Jane Levine for a comment and will post it when I hear back.
The Nancy Weiner Gallery was first raided in March 2016 as a part of an investigation into major dealers and auction houses suspected of dealing in stolen Asian art : https://chasingaphrodite.com/2016/03/17 ... asian-art/
As reported in Cambodia:
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/d ... -artefacts
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/angk ... rk-122362/