Australia is to return 14 artworks to India, including at least six believed to have been stolen or illegally exported, the Australian National Gallery announced yesterday.
The gallery identified the works — which include sculptures, photographs and a scroll — as either stolen, looted or of unknown origin.
The collection is composed largely of “religious and cultural artifacts” worth a total of about US$2.2 million, including some dating back to the 12th century.
Photo: AFP/ NATIONAL GALLERY OF AUSTRALIA
Gallery director Nick Mitzevich said that the works were set to be returned to the Indian government within months.
“It’s a relief that they can be returned to the Indian people, and it’s a resolution for the National Gallery to close a very difficult chapter of our history,” he said.
Thirteen of the works are connected to alleged trafficker Subhash Kapoor, a former art dealer who owned a gallery in Manhattan, New York. Kapoor was the subject of a massive US federal investigation known as Operation Hidden Idol.
Kapoor, who is awaiting trial, denies all charges.
The gallery has already returned several other works it acquired via Kapoor, including a US$5 million bronze statue of the Hindu god Shiva that had been stolen from a temple in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
Mitzevich said the gallery had introduced guidelines to assess any legal and ethical issues with works it holds, and was investigating three other sculptures from its Asia collection.
“It’s very much a live issue with galleries around the world, and we want to make sure that we can resolve these issues in a timely manner,” he said.
Many of the antiquities Kapoor dealt in dated back to the 11th and 12th centuries, when the Chola Dynasty presided over a flourishing of Hindu art in Tamil Nadu.
Since Kapoor’s arrest in 2011, the US has also returned hundreds of artifacts.
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