Australia: The National Gallery of Australia (NGA) will return three 9th and 10th Century bronze sculptures to Cambodia after a decade-long investigation conducted by both countries to determine the origin of the works.
Cambodia’s government called the landmark move “an important step towards rectifying past injustices.” The NGA’s return of the artefacts comes amid a global push to return looted cultural goods.
The three artworks originally came from the Champa Kingdom, which once inhabited Vietnam and parts of Cambodia.
The NGA stated that it purchased the sculptures in 2011 for $1.5 million from British artefact smuggler Mr. Douglas Latchford, who died in 2020.
According to the NGA, Mr. Latchford has been implicated in the illegal trade of antiquities since 2016, with charges laid against him in 2019 relating to the alleged trafficking of stolen and looted Cambodian artefacts. Ms. Nawapan Kriangsak, Mr. Latchford’s daughter, worked alongside researchers from the NGA and Cambodia’s Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts to help return the goods.
The works will be displayed at the NGA in Canberra for three years while Cambodia prepares a new home for them in Phnom Penh.
“It is an opportunity to put right a historical wrong but also to strengthen our ties and deepen our understanding,” Australia’s Special Envoy for the Arts Ms. Susan Templeman said at the handover ceremony.
Cambodia has continued to call on international governments to recover thousands of antiquities that were stolen from its ancient temples, including several from the Victoria and Albert and British Museums.
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