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with robert hecht and acquired hundreds of looted objects from him as the italian investigation and hecht s own journal revealed giacomo medici during a visit to the getty museum the getty case our most revealing window into a museum s antiquities acquisition process is startlingly clear we know it s stolen harold williams said in a confidential 1987 meeting about the acquisition of suspect antiquities are we willing to buy stolen property for some higher aim marion true discussed the contents of looted tombs in correspondence with giacamo medici and declared the golden funerary wreath too dangerous before greed got the better of her her predecessor arthur houghton visited medici s swiss warehouse and sought his help tracing the getty s griffins to tombs in southern italy houghton s predecessor jiri frel ran a provenance forgery workshop out of the antiquities department and acquired thousands of looted objects through a tax fraud scheme whose scope is just now becoming apparent in other words the evidence amassed to date makes abundantly clear that many of our highly educated antiquities curators and museum directors were not total dupes when it came to their role in the illicit antiquities trade they knew this is eakin s most glaring omission and the reason why repatriation is at times a reasonable response to foreign claims they are the pound of flesh that must be paid for our collective cultural sins what standard how much evidence is needed to establish that an object is the product of the illicit antiquities trade and should be returned to the country from which it was stolen for all the debate about acquisition policies there has been nearly no debate or policy papers on this question which is far more pressing concern facing museums today eakin reminds us repeatedly that museums have returned contested antiquities under no legal order and often with no knowledge of their precise findspots such statements remind me of a phone conversation i had in 2006 with the met s de montebello he told me that the met was prepared to give up its beloved euphronios krater if italy could present irrefutable proof of the precise spot from which it had been looted soon after the met s general counsel informed him that there was no such legal standard not even in cases of capital murder montebello left it to a spokesman to call back and sheepishly clarify that under the law the vase could be seized by us law enforcement based upon probable cause that is the legal standard for civil forfeitures apparently eakin did not get the memo the cases that eakin suggests are spurious are still being negotiated and we don t yet have access to the full array of evidence but what has come to light suggests they are far from fickle in the case of cambodia s claim on the khmer statue in the norton simon the precise find spot is well known and not disputed the statue s feet remain in placed today at the temple complex from which it was looted in the two cases where claims from turkey have been resolved dallas and penn there was compelling evidence penn acquired the trojan gold in 1966 from hecht whose ties to turkish looters are well documented and scientific tests later found it was consistent with samples found in turkey in the case of the orpheus mosaic investigators found polaroids of the mosaic in situ when it arrested the alleged looters eakin s call to legal arms betrays both his ignorance of the law and of museums dilemma there is a very good reason why museums have voluntarily given back nearly 1 billion in looted antiquities with no legal fight it was in their self interest as cultural property attorney rick st hilaire notes taking these cases to court is fraught with danger museums hoping to fight in court had better make sure they have no damaging internal records detailing their acquisition of looted antiquities for those are likely to come out in discovery as sotheby s recent learned they had better also be sure that no other objects in their collections have dubious origins because their legal fight will inspire a thorough examination of their entire collection this was the lesson learned by the getty which as eakin notes chose to fight rather than accept the voluntary return of six clearly looted antiquities several years and millions of dollars in legal fees later they ended up returning more than 40 eakin laments the cost to museums of dealing with repatriation claims the cost of litigation is far far higher this is not to mention the public relations consequences which concern museums far more than a few pieces of ancient art the true and lasting damage to american institutions over this past decade has not been legal fees or lost antiquities it has been the growing public perception that they are engaged in an illegal activity that at its heart is a deep betrayal of their public mission if they follow eakin s advice they will double down on that betrayal the enlightened solution that eakin seeks is the one being taken by the institutions he targets rebuilding trust with the public and foreign governments by taking claims seriously engaging in proactive research of their collections and sober evaluation of the evidence and when appropriate returning a token of the stolen property in their collections in exchange for a collaborative relationship with a potential adversary as eakin well knows this approach is not making great art ever less available it is providing museum visitors with remarkable rotating exhibits of the world s great treasures while moving both source countries and museums toward a future where questions of ownership recede and the focus becomes cooperation and education share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on linkedin opens in new window linkedin share on reddit opens in new window reddit email a link to a friend opens in new window email print opens in new window print like loading 8 comments posted in ideas tagged aamd arthur houghton association of art museum directors cleveland museum cornelius vermeule dietrich von bothmer giacamo medici harold williams hugh eakin j paul getty museum jim cuno jiri frel john walsh looted antiquities philippe de montebello repatriation robert hecht the great giveback virginia museum of fine art douglas latchford s footprints suspect khmer antiquities at the denver art museum posted on december 19 2012 49 comments who is douglas a j latchford that is the question many are asking since the bangkok based british collector who describes himself as an adventurer scholar emerged at the center of the legal fight over an allegedly looted 10th century khmer warrior now at sotheby s federal prosecutors have said in recent court filings that latchford knowingly purchased the sotheby s statue and its companion at the norton simon museum in pasadena from an organized looting network that stole the objects from the ruins of the koh ker temple complex deep in cambodia s northern jungles latchford allegedly conspired with the london auction house spink to obtain false export permits for the statues which were transported it to london in the early 1970s the filings claim our previous coverage of the sotheby s case can be found here as the new york times reported in june latchford is also listed as the donor of record for two prominent khmer pieces at the metropolitan museum of art that cambodia wants back all four of the statues are believed to have been looted from the ancient temple complex of prasat chen and smuggled out of cambodia sometime in the late 1960s or early 1970s latchford denies the allegations in an interview this month he told the new york times that prosecutors were weaving together suppositions this is somebody s imagination working overtime he said in an interview at his bangkok home with reporter tom mashberg he claims that the london auction house spink at times used his name for purchases of objects he never owned spink claims it has no longer has records from those years at the same time latchford suggested he had a transcendental claim to khmer art buddhist priests once told him he was khmer in a previous life and that what i collect had once belonged to me he told the times asked about his early collecting mr latchford spins tales of bumping his jeep along makeshift roads in the jungles of thailand and cambodia exploring vine entangled temples and the shattered outposts from a 1 000 year old fallen empire he and other well known collectors he said would buy and trade what became available without fretting over the provenance details that govern modern antiquities transactions they were rescuers not plunderers he said pointing out that he and others have restored protected cataloged and donated artifacts that might have been broken into pieces or lost or neglected the feet of two ancient sandstone statues were left behind by looters at a temple in koh ker cambodia one statue is now at sotheby s the other at the norton simon museum in pasadena the final statement is ironic as federal prosecutors suggest the statue at sotheby s was purposefully broken by looters to make it easier to smuggle a claim supported by sotheby s own analysis of the statue s surface indeed both statues feet remain in place at koh ker latchford gave another revealing answer in a 2010 interview with the bangkok post when asked where a piece in his considerable private collection had come from the ground he answered most of the pieces i have come across in the past years have been excavated or dug up you know there is a farmer in the field who digs something up and he probably thinks if i take it to bangkok or singapore or a middle man i can get 100 instead of getting 10 latchford has close ties to emma bunker the khmer art expert hired by sotheby s to help with the sale of the contested khmer statue in emails to sotheby s bunker stated that the statue was definitely stolen and said her culture spies could help sotheby s navigate cambodia s cultural heritage bureaucracy latchford and bunker have co authored several books on khmer art including adoration and glory which boasts that the authors were able to gain access to private as well as public collections worldwide to give unparalleled access to more than 150 objects many of which are published there for the first time complicating matters latchford now 81 has become a prominent donor to cambodian museums of both antiquities and money emails from the sotheby s case make clear his generosity has earned him close ties to cultural officials in the cambodian government including to hab touch who is today pressing cambodia s repatriation claims but in the past has praised latchford s scholarship given this history we ve started to scratch around to see where else objects tied to latchford have ended up here s the first of those reports denver art museum the denver museum has six objects in its permanent collection acquired from latchford four of them acquired as gifts here are details provided by the museum 1 painted vessel from thailand 400 200 bce earthenware and paint gift of douglas a j latchford accession 2000 67 no additional provenance available 2 goddess of transcendent wisdom prajnaparamita cambodia angkor period late 1100s early 1200s sandstone 59 inches 130 cm high purchased from latchford in honor of emma c bunker accession 2000 198 the museum s website suggests the piece could be from the bayon temple at angkor thom the gentle smile and lowered eyes are features associated with sculptures from the bayon temple built by jayavarman vii the last great ruler of the angkor royal line the museum said the piece was originally purchased by ian donaldson in vietnam around 1964 66 then shipped from thailand to the uk on february 12 1994 and imported from the uk on march 10 1994 it is worth noting that adoration and glory contains a very similar statue listed as being in a private collection 3 sun god surya from cambodia or vietnam 600 s to 700 s pre angkor period sandstone purchased from latchford in 2004 accession 2004 371 published in adoration and glory no other provenance information was provided 4 sleep of vishnu and the birth of brahma cambodia 700 s pre angkor period sandstone gift of douglas a j latchford accession 2005 104 the piece was published in adoration and glory and listed as being held in an american collection on page 84 no other provenance information was provided 5 bronze bell cambodia 1st century bce iron age gift of douglas a j latchford accession 2005 105 no provenance or publication history provided 6 wood cabinet with chinese motifs 1700 s thailand gift of douglas a j latchford emma c bunker accession 2006 81 no provenance or publication history provided among the museum s khmer objects not included in the list are other objects from koh ker such as this statue of rama whose ownership history is not listed in short in recent years the denver art museum has acquired several cambodian antiquities with little or no documented ownership history much less evidence of legal exportation from a man now at the center of a federal looting probe for several of those objects the only documented history was a book written by latchford himself the museum s position is further complicated by the fact that emma bunker is listed as research consultant for the museum suggesting a possible conflict of interest all of these are serious red flags in a statement a spokeswoman for the museum said the denver art museum curatorial team conducts provenance research on an ongoing basis and posts results online as they become available both on the museum s website and on the aamd object registry the museum adheres to aamd guidelines for the acquisition of archeological materials and ancient art set forth in 2008 in coming into full compliance with aamd guidelines for antiquities and archeological material the denver art museum now requires all available provenance information to be provided for new acquisitions the statement suggests a deep misunderstanding of modern acquisition ethics the moral obligation on museums to obtain clear provenance concrete evidence that an antiquity had not been recently looted did not begin in 2008 after the wave of museum scandals we wrote about in chasing aphrodite but in 1970 with the passage of the unesco convention further the museum s postings on the aamd object registry suggest that south east asian antiquities are not the only problematic collecting area for the denver museum it has acquired nine pre colombian objects since 2008 that do not have provenance pre dating 1970 we ll follow up on these matters with denver which has still not provided a list of latchford objects that were lent to the museum meanwhile if you know of other latchford material in public or private collections drop us a line confidentially at chasingaphrodite gmail com share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens 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