The reports by Srivathsan should make us all pause and ponder on a topic: repatriation of looted cultural, sacred and heritage properties to their countries of origin or to former owners (or their heirs).
Deamands for restitution of looted wealth stashed in tax havens is one form of fight against corruption.
Demaands for restitution of cultural properties to the rightful owners is another form of another fight, against corrupt, sick minds -- justifying the loot in the name of culture or cultural preservation.
Museums are vestiges or relics of colonialism, imperialism or war. They are shameful memories of violence in the name of 'civilization' studies.
Why should the world's museums seek to obtain stolen properties, in the first place?
Many stolen properties are also genuine artifacts.
Museum rackets should be abandoned forthwith and all artifacts returned to where they belong -- to the people of countries to whom these artifacts rightly belong.
Many instances can be cited. The most rotten thefts relate to the theft of two Sarasvati pratimaa stolen from Bhojaraja's school and temple in Dhar, Madhya Pradesh. The residents of Dhar are awaiting the return of the statues by lighting up akhandadeepam (eternally burning earthen lamps) in the empty niches of the thousand year old ancient building. Don't the British Museum authorities have no pangs of conscience for depriving the devotees of Dhar of prayers to a divinity considered sacred in Hindu tradition and a divinity representing education. Is this the behavior of educated Museum authorities? Auction houses are another story, more horrid than the museum frauds.
Something is rotten in this multi-national racket called museum business. If visitors have to be sustained, to make the museum industry viable, can't the museums just do with replicas? Or, just run virtual museums on the internet?
Will there be an international conference of Museums to consider the role they are expected to play in preserving cultural and art heritages? The first question to be answered is: Is it a cultural response to house stolen properties from alien cultures?
Kalyanaraman
See:
Deamands for restitution of looted wealth stashed in tax havens is one form of fight against corruption.
Demaands for restitution of cultural properties to the rightful owners is another form of another fight, against corrupt, sick minds -- justifying the loot in the name of culture or cultural preservation.
Museums are vestiges or relics of colonialism, imperialism or war. They are shameful memories of violence in the name of 'civilization' studies.
Why should the world's museums seek to obtain stolen properties, in the first place?
Many stolen properties are also genuine artifacts.
Museum rackets should be abandoned forthwith and all artifacts returned to where they belong -- to the people of countries to whom these artifacts rightly belong.
Many instances can be cited. The most rotten thefts relate to the theft of two Sarasvati pratimaa stolen from Bhojaraja's school and temple in Dhar, Madhya Pradesh. The residents of Dhar are awaiting the return of the statues by lighting up akhandadeepam (eternally burning earthen lamps) in the empty niches of the thousand year old ancient building. Don't the British Museum authorities have no pangs of conscience for depriving the devotees of Dhar of prayers to a divinity considered sacred in Hindu tradition and a divinity representing education. Is this the behavior of educated Museum authorities? Auction houses are another story, more horrid than the museum frauds.
Something is rotten in this multi-national racket called museum business. If visitors have to be sustained, to make the museum industry viable, can't the museums just do with replicas? Or, just run virtual museums on the internet?
Will there be an international conference of Museums to consider the role they are expected to play in preserving cultural and art heritages? The first question to be answered is: Is it a cultural response to house stolen properties from alien cultures?
Kalyanaraman
See:
http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2013/05/an-intl-campaign-should-be-mounted-for.html
An intl. campaign should be mounted for restitution of antiquities from museums to the people
An intl. campaign should be mounted for restitution of antiquities from museums to the people
http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2013/05/australia-should-return-sarasvati.html
Australia should return the Sarasvati pratimaa to a Karnataka temple where she belongs
Australia should return the Sarasvati pratimaa to a Karnataka temple where she belongs
Published: December 25, 2013 00:50 IST | Updated: December 25, 2013 00:50 IST
Museums bought stolen Indian artefacts without verification
An 18th century altar showing Virgin Mary with Christ Child sold by Subhash Kapoor with false provenance documents to Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore. Photo: chasingaphrodite.com
Many museums accepted false provenance certificates produced by Kapoor
The list of antiquities stolen from India and illicitly sold to museums across the world seems to be growing.
New evidences show that Subhash Chandra Kapoor, U.S. based antiquities dealer extradited to India and currently lodged in Chennai prison, sold a mid 19th century Thanjavur painting depicting Serfoji II and Shivaji II and a gilded 18th century altar showing the Virgin Mary with Christ Child were sold to museums in the U.S. and Singapore using false documents.
The U.S. investigators have also unravelled that Kapoor and his co-conspirators had fabricated provenance letters, origin history and letters of authenticity for selling stolen sculptures and paintings. Many museums, which bought these artefacts from Kapoor had accepted these false provenance certificates — documents that establish the successive ownership — without checking their veracity.
Long time associateThis fact, established for the first time in the investigation, has enhanced the prospect of retrieving these stolen objects. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, in a complaint filed in the Criminal Court of the City of New York City on December 20, charged Selina Mohamed, a long time associate of Kapoor, for possessing and dealing with stolen properties.
It also charged that Kapoor and his co-conspirators including Selina Mohamed manufactured many dozens of false provenance letters.
1000-year-old idolUsing these documents, they sold a 1000-year-old Lakshmi Narayana idol to the National Gallery of Australia for $375,000; an altar with the Virgin Mary and Christ Child to Asian Civilisations Museum in Singapore for . $1,35,000 and a Thanjavur painting depicting Serfoji II to the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts for $ 35,000.
Apart from these objects, Kapoor also sold a Chola period bronze idol of Ganesha, stone sculptures of Dwarapalakas and a torso of a devata (a demi god) to various museums in a similar fashion.
Museums which had bought these stolen artefacts had hitherto claimed that they followed due diligence before purchasing them and their transactions were legitimate. The recent investigations prove otherwise.
Storage unitsThe Manhattan District Attorney’s Office also charged Selina Mohammed with running three storage units in New York that stored looted antiquities. In 2012 , when the U.S. authorities raided these storage units, they discovered a large number of stolen objects including a stone sculpture form Bharhut Stupa and precious bronze idols Tamil Nadu.
Clever investigationThey were able to find these facts using informants, clever investigation and review of email correspondences between Kapoor, his co-conspirators and gallery owners.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/museums-bought-stolen-indian-artefacts-without-verification/article5498535.ece?homepage=true&css=print
– OCTOBER 27, 2013POSTED IN: UNCATEGORIZED
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office has charged the sister of Manhattan antiquities dealer Subhash Kapoor with attempting to hide from federal authorities four stolen bronze sculptures worth $14.5 million.
Sushma Sareen was charged on October 7 with four counts of felony possession of stolen property. According the criminal complaint, Sareen took over Kapoor’s business after his arrest in Germany in 2012 and began running it with Kapoor’s daughter Mamta Sager. Ever since, Sareen has been closely involved with the business, traveling to India, assisting with wire transfers and contacting smugglers, the complaint alleges.
Sareen was released on $10,000 bond. Her lawyer Scott E. Leemon told the New York Times that Sareen denied the charges.
The Chola-era bronzes she attempted to hide are among 14 that were stolen in February 2008 from the Varadharajah Perumi temple in Suthamally Village of Tamil Nadu, India, the complaint alleges. The idols were allegedly stolen for Kapoor by a crew hired by his accomplice Sanjeevi Ashokan. According to Indian investigators, Ashokan “used to select Chola period temples, which were in ruins, for committing theft of antique idols, as theft in such temples would not be known soon after the crime. For identifying temples to commit the crime, he used to refer to books such as South Indian Bronzes, Master pieces of Indian Sculptures and Survey Maps.” In all, 18 idols were stolen from a dilapidated temple during two days in February 2008. They were transported in a truck to Chennai, the Tamil Nadu capital, where many were provided to Ashokan, who paid Rs. 25 lakhs, or about $50,000.
Ashokan allegedly exported the idols in a shipment mixed with modern handicrafts through the Chennai Port on March 6, 2008 to Union Link Int. Movers (HK) Inc in Hong Kong. Kapoor paid Ashokan more than 1 million rupees, or roughly US$230,000, through HSBC bank for the idols, Indian investigators allege. Shipping documents seized by U.S. federal agents appear to support that conclusion. The complaint says the shipping records show the 14 idols were illegally exported from India to Hong Kong along with otherwise legal shipments of “new Indian artistic handicrafts.”
The complaint also spells out the early stages of the Kapoor investigation and reveals that federal agents have recruited several insiders — including a member of Kapoor’s staff and a person who posed as a private collector – as informants in their investigation of Kapoor, who they have described as “one of the most prolific commodities smugglers in the world.”
That investigation appears to have begun in 2007, when a person described as “Informant #1″ was arrested in California and pled guilty to a customs violation. The defendant began cooperating with federal investigators, who asked Informant 1 to contact Subhash Kapoor and employees of his Madison Avenue gallery Art of the Past.
Informant 1 began asking Kapoor and his staff for “fresh” antiquities, a euphemism for objects that had recently been looted or stolen. In a 2008 visit to Kapoor’s gallery, Informant 1 was offered a stolen 12th century sculpture of the dancing Hindu got Shiva Nataraja for $3.5 million.
In September 2011, Informant 1 recorded a meeting with Kapoor in which he was offered the $3.5 million Shiva and another Shiva valued at $5 million, both of which were on display in the gallery. Kapoor said he had been holding the objects for a few years and expected them to appreciate by 10 to 15% a year. Both had been displayed in Kapoor’s catalogs and other catalogs, including the Asia Week New York 2009.
Emails obtained by federal agents show Kapoor also was shopping two other Chola bronzes: a Uma Parameshvari valued at $2.5 million and a $3.5 million Uma Parvati.
November 2011, Kapoor instructed an employee to send the four bronzes to the apartment of Selina Mohamad. After federal agents searched Kapoor’s gallery in Jan 2012, Mohamad asked that the statues to be moved. Sareen allegedly moved them to a “safe location.”
It is not clear where the bronze idols are today. Kapoor is currently being held in a Chennai jail awaiting trial.
ACM has another artifact with fake letter of origin
DMCA.com December 25th, 2013 | Author: Editorial
Artifact from Goa, India, sold to ACM for US$135,000 by wanted art dealer Kapoor
The New York District Attorney’s Office criminally charged the ex-girlfriend of wanted art dealer Subhash Kapoor on Friday (20 Dec), alleging that she participated in a conspiracy to launder stolen artifacts by creating false ownership histories and helping to hide some of the stolen artifacts as investigators closed in on Kapoor.
Artifact from Goa, India, sold to ACM for US$135,000 by wanted art dealer KapoorSelina Mohamed was charged with four counts of criminal possession of stolen property and one count of conspiracy.
Kapoor’s long-time gallery manager Aaron Freedman recently pleaded guilty to six related criminal counts. He will be sentenced on 4 February 2014.
Kapoor himself is in custody in Chennai, India, awaiting trial on charges of trafficking in precious artifacts stolen from temples in Tamil Nadu. The US government has issued a warrant of arrest against him on charges of possessing stolen property and hopes to extradite him to face these charges.
Prosecutors allege that since 1992, Ms Mohamed had been involved in the fabrication of bogus ownership histories for dozens of objects Kapoor eventually sold to museums around the world.
According to a court document [Link] filed on 20 December 2013 by a US Federal Agent with the Department of Homeland Security, among the many false provenance letters (i.e. letters of origin) created by Ms Mohamed was one for a gilded 18th century altar from Goa, India, showing the Virgin Mary and Christ Child. The court document says that this artifact was sold to Singapore’s Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM) for US$135,000 in February 2009:
At the time, Kapoor described it as “one of the most important and unique examples of Goanese art to appear on the market in over a generation.”
On 6 December 2013, TR Emeritus broke the news that a 1,000-year idol stolen from India is now in the possession of ACM (‘1,000-year idol stolen from India now in SG museum‘). The 1,000-year-old Uma Parmeshvari bronze sculpture was stolen from a temple in the Ariyalur district of Tamil Nadu in 2005 or 2006 before being smuggled to Kapoor’s gallery Art Of The Past in Madison Avenue, Manhattan, New York. It was later sold to ACM for US$650,000 in February 2007.
According to chasingaphrodite.com, a blog dedicated to the hunt for looted antiquities in the world’s museums, Kapoor’s contact in Singapore is ACM’s senior curator Dr Gauri Krishnan. The blog is written and maintained by Jason Felch, an award-winning investigative reporter at the Los Angeles Times. He has written on topics such as arms trafficking, forensic DNA, disaster fraud, money laundering, public education and corruption in the art world.
Dr Gauri Krishnan is Director of the Indian Heritage Centre under the National Heritage Board [Link]. According to LinkedIn [Link], she has been working in ACM/NHB since 2001. She graduated from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda in India.
The false provenances allegedly created by Ms Mohamed over the years were not terribly sophisticated. Here is an example she allegedly created to go with with one of the stolen artifacts:
It is not known to what extent ACM conducts due diligence on these claimed ownership histories, and indeed, on the art that it purchases.
Posted on December 23, 2013 | Leave a comment
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office criminally charged the girlfriend of Manhattan antiquities dealer Subhash Kapoor on Friday, alleging she participated in a decades-long conspiracy to launder stolen antiquities by creating false ownership histories and, more recently, helpin to hide four stolen bronze sculptures as investigators closed in on Kapoor.
Selina Mohamed was charged with four counts of criminal possession of stolen property and one count of conspiracy, court records show. She is the third person criminally charged in the case, following the indictments of Kapoor’s sister Sushma Sareen and gallery manager Aaron Freedman, who pled guilty to six criminal counts earlier this month. There is arrest warrant out for Kapoor, who is in custody in India awaiting trial. [Full coverage.]
Prosecutors allege that since 1992 Mohamed has been involved in the fabrication of bogus ownership histories for dozens of objects Kapoor sold to museums around the world. Since 2007, she also had nominal control over several of Kapoor’s storage facilities.
The possession charges relate to Mohamed’s alleged role in the disappearance of four of Kapoor’s stolen bronze sculptures – two of Shiva and two of Uma – valued at $14.5 million. Kapoor instructed his gallery manager to send the Chola-era bronzes to Mohamed’s house in November 2011, the complaint states. After federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations searched Kapoor’s Art of the Past gallery and storage facilities in January 2012, Mohamed insisted that the bronzes be removed from her house. They are now missing.
Mohamed, who records show was arrested on Friday, could not be reached for comment. Her attorney is not identified in court records.
Mohamed allegedly created false provenance for several Kapoor objects we’ve written about in the past. Several more are identified in the complaint for the first time. They include:
A 10th – 11th century sculpture of Lakshmi Narayana from northern India, now at the National Gallery of Australia. The NGA bought it from Kapoor in 2006 for $375,000, records show. As Kapoor noted in promotional materials, “The treatment of the eyes is similar to that of another Lakshmi-Narayana from the temple at Khajuraho,” aworld heritage site in Madhya Pradesh that contains some of the greatest masterpieces of Indian art.
A gilded 18th century altar from Goa showing the Virgin Mary at Singapore’s Asian Civilization’s Museum. Kapoor sold it to the museum in 2009 for $135,000, describing it as “one of the most important and unique examples of Goanese art to appear on the market in over a generation.”
For the first time, Friday’s criminal complaint lists several American museums that purchased objects from Kapoor and his associates, who the complaint says attempted to launder them with fabricated ownership histories. They include:
12th century Vishnu Trivrikrama at the University of Florida’s Harn Museum in Gainsville, FL
Records show Kapoor visited the museum in April 1999 and met with the interim director, Larry David Perkins. Soon after, Kapoor offered to sell the statue to the museum with a false provenance created by Mohamed, records show. His promotional material described its importance, saying, “There is only one known Vishnu Trivikrama image in the world in the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, which rivals the Art of the Past image.” The Harn purchased it for $75,000 in 1999.
A 19th century painting at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass. The museum purchased the painting from Kapoor for $35,000 in 2006. This is the first of painting that investigators have identified as bearing a bogus provenance, suggesting his criminal activity may have extended beyond ancient art. Kapoor sold or donated dozens of paintings to museums, particularly the Met.
The complaint also notes Kapoor attempted to sell a Jain bronze shrine with a false letter of provenance to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1992. The museum did not acquire the piece, and its unclear where it is today.
Finally, Mohamed allegedly provided false provenance for a torso of a Vedata that was reported as stolen from Karitalai, India in 2006 on the Interpol database. Kapoor put its value at $450,000, noting in his catalog, “This ornamentation is nearly identical to the jewelry seen on the famous sculpture of aDancing Devata at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The similarity is so strong that it is highly possible both sculptures come from the same workshop.” (The Met’s Devata is a promised gift from Florence and Herbert Irving and has been on loan to the museum since 1993.)
The false provenances allegedly created by Mohamed over the years were not terribly sophisticated. Here is a sample of one she allegedly created to go with with the NGA’s Dvarapalas:
Going forward, a key question will be: To what extent did museums conduct basic due diligence on these claimed ownership histories? Many museums no doubt took them at face value. They should immediately make public any provenance information they’ve received from Kapoor to show their good faith and assist investigators with this burgeoning case.
We’ve posted the criminal complaint against Mohamed here:
