BANGKOK: At an official repatriation ceremony held in Bangkok on Tuesday, two sculptures that had been smuggled out of Thailand were welcomed back. Among them was a 900-year-old sculpture that had spent three decades at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Shortly before he passed away in 2020, British-Thai art dealer Douglas Latchford, who was accused of trafficking stolen artefacts from Cambodia and Thailand, was connected to a 129-centimeter statue of Shiva known as “Golden Boy,” which was returned to its original location.
The figure, which was on display at the Met from 1988 to 2023, was found during an archaeological investigation at the Prasat Ban Yang ruins more than 50 years ago, close to the Cambodian border. It is thought that Latchford smuggled it out of Thailand in 1975. After being connected to Latchford, a second bronze sculpture, known as “Kneeling Woman,” which depicts a 43-centimeter-tall female figure kneeling with her hands above her head in a Thai welcoming position, was also returned.
The pieces’ homecoming coincides with an increasing number of institutions around the globe debating how to repatriate stolen art treasures. During the repatriation ceremony held at the National Museum in Bangkok, Phnombootra Chandrachoti, the director-general of Thailand’s Fine Arts Department, expressed his gratitude for the artefacts and stated that they will be permanently placed in their motherland.
