The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York announced on Wednesday that it will return 14 artworks to Cambodia and Thailand that were looted from ancient temples and smuggled out of the countries.
The artworks include two stone statues of Hindu gods, Shiva and Skanda, that were part of a pair of twin guardians that flanked the entrance to a 10th-century temple in Koh Ker, a former capital of the Khmer Empire. The statues were donated to the Met by Douglas Latchford, a British-Thai collector and dealer who was indicted in 2019 for trafficking Cambodian antiquities and falsifying documents. Latchford died in 2020.
The Met also agreed to return 12 bronze sculptures of Buddhist and Hindu deities that were stolen from temples in Thailand during the 1960s and 1970s. The sculptures were acquired by the Met from various sources, including Latchford and other donors and dealers.
The Met said in a statement that it decided to repatriate the artworks after conducting a review of their provenance and consulting with the governments of Cambodia and Thailand. The museum said it was committed to “ethical collecting” and “the responsible stewardship of the objects in its care.”
The Cambodian and Thai authorities welcomed the Met’s decision and expressed their gratitude to the museum for its cooperation. They said the artworks were part of their national heritage and cultural identity and that they would display them in their national museums for the public to enjoy.
The Met’s move follows a series of similar actions by other museums and institutions around the world that have returned looted or disputed artworks to their countries of origin. The issue of restitution has become a hot topic in the art world, as more countries demand the return of their cultural treasures and more evidence emerges of the illicit trade of antiquities.
