San Francisco's Asian Art Museum to return four ancient Thai sculptures looted in the 1960s
Four ancient bronze sculptures looted from Thailand more than half a century ago are set to return home from the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, Thai officials announced this week.
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.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
14 hours ago
- Yahoo
China's AliExpress risks fine for breaching EU illegal product rules
Chinese online giant AliExpress must do more to protect consumers from illegal product sales, the European Commission said Wednesday in an interim finding that could open the way to heavy fines. While noting some progress, "the Commission preliminarily found AliExpress in breach of its obligation to assess and mitigate risks related to the dissemination of illegal products" under the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA), a statement said. The EU opened a formal investigation in March 2024 into AliExpress, which is owned by Alibaba, for multiple suspected breaches of DSA rules on countering the spread of illegal goods and content online. The commission's preliminary findings concluded that "AliExpress fails to appropriately enforce its penalty policy concerning traders that repeatedly post illegal content". It also highlighted "systemic failures" in AliExpress's moderation systems that expose it to "manipulation by malicious traders", and said the firm's own risk assessments underestimated the dangers linked to illegal products. Those findings were "in breach of the obligations" that the DSA imposes on very large platforms -- such as AliExpress, Facebook and Instagram -- with more than 45 million monthly European users, the commission said. AliExpress now has the right to examine the commission's findings and reply in writing. If AliExpress is confirmed to be in non-compliance with the DSA, the commission could impose a fine of up to six percent of the firm's global turnover. The EU has developed a powerful armoury to regulate Big Tech with the milestone DSA and a sister law, the Digital Markets Act, that hits web giants with strict curbs, obligations and oversight on how they do business. It took action against AliExpress after identifying likely failings to prevent the sale of fake medicines, prevent minors seeing pornography, stop affiliated influencers pushing illegal products, and other issues including data access for researchers. In its statement Wednesday, the commission said AliExpress had taken a series of legally binding measures to remedy those concerns. Steps included improvements to its systems for detecting illegal products such as medicines and pornographic material, notably goods spread through hidden links and affiliate programmes. The commission also said AliExpress had addressed concerns regarding the flagging of illegal products, the handling of internal complaints, ad transparency, the traceability of traders and research access to data. ec/ub/js
San Francisco Chronicle
a day ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Man arrested on suspicion of antisemitic attack in S.F.'s Marina charged with hate crime
A man suspected of punching and kicking another man in San Francisco's Marina District in an antisemitic attack was charged Tuesday with assault and hate crime allegations, the District Attorney's Office said. Juan Diaz-Rivas, 36, faces two counts of assault, with allegations that the attack was a hate crime and caused serious injuries to the victim. Diaz-Rivas remained jailed Tuesday afternoon. He was arrested after the attack, which occurred on Fillmore Street near Moulton Street around 2:20 a.m. Friday. The victim and friend were sitting on a curb waiting for an Uber after a night out when a man started shouting, 'F— Jews, free Palestine,' the friend, Alana Gans, 28, told the Chronicle in an interview Sunday. When Gans told the man she was Jewish and asked him to leave, the man walked over and said, 'F— you,' Gans recounted. When she stood up, so did her friend, who got in between her and the man, Gan said. The other men recorded on their cellphones, laughed and shouted, 'F— Jews,' too, Gans said. As she tried to pull her friend's arm to walk away, the group sucker-punched and kicked her friend on the ground. The men also pushed to the ground and kicked an employee from the nearby Balboa Cafe who tried to intervene, Gans said, adding that the attack lasted about 30 seconds. According to prosecutors, the victim fell to the ground, hit his head and lost consciousness. Gans said her friend suffered a swollen lip, as well as two bumps on the front of his head and a third on the back of his head. The assailants ran away, only to return and yell, 'F— those Jews,' Gans said. When officers showed up, she pointed them out. Police said a second suspect was cited for battery and released. It was unclear Tuesday whether he was charged in connection with the attack.
San Francisco Chronicle
a day ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Man arrested on suspicion of defacing S.F.'s iconic Pink Triangle installation
San Francisco police said that officers arrested a 19-year-old on suspicion of defacing the Pink Triangle memorial art installation on Twin Peaks on Tuesday. Officers said they responded to the unit block of Christmas Tree Point just before 12:30 p.m., where they observed a man 'actively defacing' the installation. After the suspect ran, police pursued him on foot and detained him, officials said. Officers arrested Lester Bamacajeronimo of San Francisco in the incident. Officials said they seized evidence of vandalism tools. Charges against the suspect are pending, officials said. 'This vandalism is unacceptable in our city and the San Francisco Police department condemns this act,' spokespersons said. 'San Francisco's Pink Triangle is a powerful tool of our city's commitment to supporting LGBT rights and commemorates to (sic) victims of the past.' The installation of the city's famous Pink Triangle is one of the many events that mark the beginning of San Francisco's Pride month. Hundreds of volunteers show up each year to help setup the triangle, which makes up nearly an acre in size and this year, was made up of 175 pink tarps. The San Francisco tradition, which began as a renegade crafts project, was established in 1995, according to a historical website for the Pink Triangle. The symbol of the pink triangle is a reclaiming of the pink triangle patch that gay men were forced to wear in Nazi Germany's concentration camps alongside Jews, Roma, political dissidents and other 'undesirables.' Even after the Allies defeated the Nazis and freed many concentration camp survivors, those marked with pink triangles were imprisoned under a law barring homosexuality. Germany did not recognize gay men as victims of the Nazi regime and worthy of compensation until 2002, the Pink Triangle founder, Patrick Carney, told the Chronicle earlier this year. San Francisco Chronicle reporter St. John Barned-Smith contributed to this report.
