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The Metropolitan Museum of Artwork in New York will flip 15 sculptures spanning the primary century BCE to the eleventh century CE to the Indian authorities, the museum introduced at the moment (30 March). All the objects in query have been as soon as bought by Subhash Kapoor, the convicted trafficker of looted antiquities who previously ran the Manhattan-based gallery Artwork of the Previous. Final November, a court docket in India sentenced Kapoor to 10 years in jail for position in stealing and illegally exporting artefacts from the nation.
The museum first contacted the Division of Homeland Safety in 2015 concerning objects it had acquired from Kapoor. As we speak’s repatriation announcement follows new data offered to the Met by the Manhattan District Lawyer’s workplace, which issued an arrest warrant for Kapoor in 2012 and filed paperwork to have him extradited to face costs within the US in 2020. In October 2021, the Manhattan District Lawyer’s workplace returned 235 antiquities seized throughout its investigation into Kapoor’s trafficking to India.
The Met has come below more and more intense scrutiny in recent times as questions have emerged about a whole lot of antiquities it has acquired from Egypt, Turkey, India, Cambodia and elsewhere. Simply final week, two objects relationship from the third century CE that had been on show on the Met—a bronze statue that was stolen from the archaeological web site of Bubon and a sculpture bust that was looted from the Perge archaeological web site—have been returned to the Turkish authorities. A report earlier this month discovered that greater than 1,000 objects in its assortment have direct ties to people who’ve both been suspected or convicted of dealing in looted antiquities.
“The museum is dedicated to the accountable acquisition of archaeological artwork and applies rigorous provenance requirements each to new acquisitions and to works lengthy in its assortment,” a spokesperson for the Met mentioned in an announcement. “The museum is actively reviewing the historical past of antiquities from suspect sellers. The museum values extremely its long-standing relationships with the federal government of India and is happy to resolve this matter.”
As of this writing, on-line catalogue listings for 72 works within the Met’s assortment checklist Kapoor of their provenance. In 2009, the museum held an exhibition dedicated to drawings Kapoor had donated to the museum.
Quite a few different establishments, together with the Nationwide Gallery of Australia, have returned works they acquired from Kapoor.
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