San Francisco's Asian Art Museum to return four ancient Thai sculptures looted in the 1960s
The long-awaited repatriation marks a milestone in Thailand's efforts to reclaim cultural artifacts and brings emotional closure for at least one of the villagers who originally discovered them.
The sculptures, known collectively as the Prakonchay artifacts, include three Bodhisattva statues and one Buddha image. They were originally discovered in the Prakonchay district (now part of Chalerm Phra Kiat district) in the Buriram province of Thailand.
The artifacts were allegedly smuggled out of the country in 1964 and later linked to controversial art dealer Douglas Latchford.
The works are estimated to be 1,300 years old.
'The museum takes requests for the return of objects believed to have been stolen very seriously,' Rob Mintz, chief curatorial director of the Asian Art Museum, told the Chronicle. 'The return of these sculptures to Thailand has taken many months of research and careful consideration. We are happy to have played a role in seeing these works return to their rightful owners."
David Keller of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Investigations informed Thai officials on Saturday, April 26, that the museum had removed the items from its registry, according to Phanombootra Chandrajoti, director-general of Thailand's Fine Arts Department.
Thai and U.S. authorities are now working to coordinate their safe return.
This is not the first return of objects by the Asian Art Museum.
In 2021, the museum repatriated two 10th and 11th-century sandstone lintels to Thailand following a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The works had been part of the museum's collection since the 1960s and were initially purchased by European dealers.
The Asian Art Museum's fall 2024 exhibition 'Moving Objects: Learning from Local and Global Communities' sought to examine questions of cultural heritage, ownership and restitution.
The show featured what the museum called a 'case study' of four ancient bronze sculptures originating from northeastern Thailand that are also in the process of being repatriated.
The works were believed to have been stolen before they came into the possession of the Asian Art Museum in the 1960s.
'We anticipate the joy of the people of Thailand in welcoming these sculptures back home, and look forward to building collaborative, equitable, and generative relations with Thailand in the future,' said Natasha Riechle, the museum's associate curator of Southeast Asian Art.
The sculptures are among 32 artifacts formally requested by the Thai government in a 2019 diplomatic appeal. Their recovery is the result of years of documentation and collaboration led by Thailand's Committee for the Retrieval of Overseas Antiquities.
'I never imagined they would be sold overseas,' Samak Promlak, one of six villagers who discovered the artifacts decades ago, told Khaosod. 'They belong to the Thai people.'
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