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| A 2011 Sotheby’s catalog shows a thousand-year-old statue believed to be from the Koh Ker temple in Cambodia. |
April 4, 2012
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL and TOM MASHBERG
The New York Times
Federal agents in New York on Wednesday moved to seize a thousand-year-old Cambodian statue from Sotheby’s, alleging in a civil complaint that Sotheby’s had put the 10th-century figure of a mythological warrior up for auction despite knowing that it had been stolen from a temple.
Investigators said the sandstone statue, whose return is being sought by Cambodia and which is valued at $2 million to $3 million, would be impounded on Thursday by agents from the United States Department of Homeland Security.
The statue, consigned to Sotheby’s for sale by a Belgian collector, had been set for auction in New York in March 2011 but was abruptly pulled from the market at the last minute after Cambodia claimed ownership. At the time Sotheby’s rejected Cambodia’s efforts to recover the Khmer antiquity, insisting there was no proof that it had been looted and therefore the auction was legal.
But in a series of internal e-mail exchanges obtained by investigators and included in the federal complaint filed Wednesday in United States District Court in New York, at least one Sotheby’s officer is depicted as having been told in 2010 by a scholar in Cambodian art that Cambodian officials considered the statue a looted artifact.
Cambodia initially tried to negotiate a private deal with Sotheby’s in which a Hungarian collector of Khmer art would buy the antiquity for $1 million and present it to Cambodia as a good-will gesture. Those discussions languished before Cambodia, emboldened by its rediscovery of colonial-era anti-looting laws in its archives, turned to American officials for redress.
The Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement branch then built its case based on a series of Cambodian patrimony laws from the early 20th century.
In a statement Sotheby’s said it disputed the allegations. “This sculpture was legally imported into the United States, and all relevant facts were openly declared,” the statement said. “We have researched this sculpture extensively and have never seen nor been presented with any evidence that specifies when the sculpture left Cambodia over the last 1,000 years, nor is there any such evidence in this complaint.”
Archaeological experts cited by investigators said strong evidence indicates it was plundered during the upheavals of the Cambodian civil war in the 1970s. Its pedestal — and that of a matching statue now at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, Calif. — was found at Koh Ker, a site about 80 miles northeast of Angkor Wat.
The federal government’s claim that the statue was looted during the Cambodian civil war rests partly on findings by a French archaeologist, Eric Bourdonneau, who reported that the work had been seen in place as recently as the 1960s, that a road built after 1965 provided the first easy access to the site, and that the piece did not appear on the art market until its first known sale in Britain in 1975.
Cambodia joins a growing number of nations that are aggressively trying to recover artifacts and antiquities from American museums and private owners, a trend that has led to widespread concern among collectors. The Cambodian government has not made any claim on the Norton Simon’s statue.
Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement, “With today’s action we are taking an important step toward reuniting this ancient artifact with its rightful owners.”
The government’s assertion that Sotheby’s knew the statue was stolen was based on e-mail exchanges between the scholar of Khmer art and a Sotheby’s officer. The statue entered the country in April 2010, the complaint said, after the unidentified owner gave United States Customs and Border Protection a sworn statement asserting that “to the best of my knowledge” the statue “is not cultural property documented as appertaining to the inventory of a museum or religious or secular monument or similar institution in Cambodia.”
Sotheby’s then arranged to auction the piece, engaging the scholar to write the catalog entry. The scholar was not identified in the complaint, but an expert known for her books on Khmer art, Emma C. Bunker, said in interviews that she was the scholar.
The complaint quoted a e-mail from the scholar warning an unnamed Sotheby’s official about attempting to sell the statue at auction: “The Cambodians in Phnom Penh now have clear evidence that it was definitely stolen from Prasat Chen at Koh Ker, as the feet are still in situ.”
Ms. Bunker said in an interview that she had urged Sotheby’s not to sell the statue at public auction but rather privately, to attract less attention. But, she said, she did so only after Sotheby’s officials assured her they had clear provenance on the statue. “They swore — swore — to me they had proper information,” she said. “They didn’t have the all-clear.”
Later e-mails depict the scholar as suggesting that the piece could be legally sold, but that drawing the attention of Cambodian officials to the catalog entry “would be like waving a red flag in front of a bull.”
On Nov. 8, 2010, Sotheby’s did notify a Cambodian minister about the planned sale and, receiving no reply, arranged to auction the statue in spring 2011, the complaint said. But on March 24, 2011, the day of the auction, the secretary general of Cambodia called on Sotheby’s to withdraw the item, claiming “it is believed that this statue was illegally removed from the site.”
Sotheby’s said in its statement that it had been in discussion with the American and Cambodian governments for a year.
“Given that Cambodia has always expressed its desire to resolve this situation amicably,” the statement said, “and that we had an understanding with the U.S. attorney’s office that no action would be filed pending further discussion towards a resolution of this matter, we are disappointed that this action has been filed and we intend to defend it vigorously.”
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