The National Gallery of Australia has agreed to hand back one of the highlights of its Asian collection to the Cambodian government, a trio of 9th-century Cham sculptures, that it now believes were looted and illegally sold by a notorious UK dealer, Douglas Latchford.
The astonishing story of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara Padmapani and her Attendants, which were purchased by the NGA for $US1.5m in 2011, reads like the plot of an Indiana Jones movie.
It involves an army of looters digging at night for buried treasure among temple ruins, priceless works of art smuggled through the jungle to Thailand, a dealer who allegedly profited from the thefts while simultaneously being feted as an expert in Asian art in the west, a daughter trying to make amends and a determined American lawyer working to restore a country’s heritage.
Australia’s connection to this saga came to light when the National Gallery of Australia undertook an extensive investigation into the provenance of the trio of 1,000-year-old Cham bronze sculptures.
On Thursday the NGA announced these masterpieces of the Cham culture – which once flourished in parts of modern Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos – would be returned to Cambodia after it found, on the balance of probabilities, they had been illegally excavated and exported.
The undersecretary of state from Cambodia’s Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, Kong Vireak, said at the official handover at the NGA last week his country had been traumatised by war and the return of the sculptures “heals our nation”.
“The return is a miracle and sets an example for the world,” he said.
It was a bittersweet moment for the gallery, which has spent almost a decade trying to unravel the true story of the intricate bronze sculptures.
The sculptures were bought by the NGA in 2011 for $US1.5m from Latchford, a now-notorious British antiquities dealer who lived between Thailand and London and who was regarded as one of the foremost experts in Khmer art.
It was a fertile time to be building a collection. A large number of high-quality artefacts were emerging into the market and then NGA director, Ron Radford, wanted Australia to build a world-class collection.
The extremely rare Cham trio – described by Radford in the gallery’s annual report as “perhaps the most extraordinary work acquired this year” – was bought directly from Latchford’s private collection.
Latchford provided paperwork showing a chain of ownership, but he insisted on a confidentiality agreement, which meant the NGA has been unable to say where it acquired the sculptures until relatively recently.
According to Latchford, the trio had originally been bought in Vietnam in 1969 by an English businessman and collector, Ian Donaldson, who sold them on to Latchford in the 1970s.
It now appears the reality was very different.
The NGA’s senior curator, Bronwyn Campbell, said the gallery did some work on provenance. It got two expert opinions as to authenticity, the sculpture was not on the art loss register, it was published in a text and Latchford provided a warranty.
The “fact” the Cham trio was bought by Donaldson around 1970 was significant for the NGA because the Unesco convention designed to prevent the looting of cultural treasures, signed by 142 countries, came into effect in 1972. The convention is the ethical line in the sand that museums throughout the world have observed for decades.
Not long after the NGA’s purchase of the Cham sculptures, whispers began to spread in the art world about Latchford.
In 2013 New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art agreed to return works, parts of which had been donated by Latchford, to Cambodia. Latchford acknowledged the artefacts had been “moonlighted” out of Cambodia, but denied having any role in illicit shipments of antiquities.
In 2014 questions arose about a prized item in the NGA collection: a 2nd century Kushan period Seated Buddha from southern India bought in 2007 from a New York dealer, Nancy Wiener, for $US1.08m.
Unable to allay the NGA’s concerns, Wiener agreed to return the money. Together they donated the Seated Buddha to the Indian government.
In 2016 Wiener was charged with dealing in stolen antiquities, including the Seated Buddha, finally pleading guilty in 2021. The indictment referred to “co-conspirator no 1”, which the New York Times reported referred to Latchford. None of the unnamed conspirators in that case faced charges.
By now there were serious concerns about the origins of many Asian works of art in collections around the world, including the NGA.
In 2015 a former high court judge, Susan Crennan AC KC, was brought in to advise on how the gallery should approach the question of provenance. The Cham trio was put at the top of the list of items to be researched, because it shared the same provenance as the Seated Buddha – it had allegedly been in Ian Donaldson’s collection.
Latchford’s reputation unravels
Over the years, research efforts have focused on two main lines of inquiry.
The first was to try to establish archaeological origins of the Cham trio. Experts in France, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia found nothing.
The second was to attempt to trace possession of the sculptures backwards from their appearance on the art market in the 2000s. Friends of Donaldson were contacted. Most did not recall him having a special interest in Asian art.
Meanwhile Latchford’s life as a fêted dealer in antiquities was unravelling. In 2019 he was indicted in a Manhattan court, which alleged he had engaged in an elaborate scheme to falsify the provenance of artefacts. He died within months, without having been arrested or having the opportunity to defend the charges.
In Cambodia, an American lawyer, Bradley Gordon has taken up the challenge on behalf of the Cambodian government to claim back the nation’s cultural challenge, working pro bono with a team of archaeologists, lawyers and researchers to uncover the illicit origins of works of art in museums and private collections, and advocate for their return.
Gordon and his team have recently received assistance from a perhaps unexpected source – Latchford’s daughter, Nawapan Kriangsak, also known as Julia Latchford.
As her father became increasingly ill, Nawapan Kriangsak began reviewing his papers and emails and found extensive evidence of his business dealings.
She has previously said she did not regard all her father’s antiquities trading to have been illegal, but after his death she promised to return his entire personal collection of more than 100 works to the Cambodian government. She declined to comment on the return of the Cham sculptures.
In 2023 Nawapan Kriangsak returned 77 exquisite gold items referred to as “the crown jewels of the Angkor empire”.
Nawapan Kriangsak has provided Gordon and Cambodian authorities with the contents of her father’s computer and papers. Gordon has also been aided by the testimony of former smugglers who have come forward to confess to their activities.
Among them was Toek Tik, known as Lion, a former Khmer Rouge child soldier, who at one time commanded a 500-strong team excavating and looting sculptures.
Lion began excavating in the 1970s, as part of the Khmer Rouge’s efforts to fund the civil war that claimed thousands of lives and resulted in the mass murder of Cambodia’s intellectuals and many others.
In a video interview with the New York Times just before he died of cancer, Lion explained how he would take photos at temples and, through an intermediary, would provide them to a man they referred to as Lord Ford.
“Lord Ford”, reported by the New York Times to be Latchford, would then direct what he wanted stolen.
Lion claimed the looters would hack the sculptures from their bases at night, then take them by bullock cart over the border to Thailand.
Lion’s accounts have proved critical in establishing where and when many priceless works of art were removed. The authorities have been convinced, in part, by Lion’s ability to pinpoint the exact location of feet, bases and other remnants of statuary he says he stole.
In the interview Lion said he wanted to redeem himself before he died.
“I regret what I did,” he said. “I want the gods to come home.”
‘I was sure they were Vietnamese’
Back in Australia, Campbell was at a dead end in her research on the Cham trio.
After learning of Nawapan Kriangsak’s decision to return the personal collection to the Cambodian government in 2021, the NGA reached out to her. Researchers were put in touch with Gordon and sent him photos of all Cambodian and Khmer objects in the NGA collection.
“Almost as an afterthought, I sent a picture of the Cham sculptures. I was just sure they were Vietnamese,” Campbell said.
Almost immediately Gordon responded. Lion said he had recognised the padmapani and her attendants as sculptures that had been dug from a rice paddy in southern Cambodia, 20km from the Vietnamese border, in 1994.
Lion claimed to have taken the artworks to Sisiphon in western Cambodia, from where he said they were illegally exported to Thailand by a man known as Sleeping Giant, who supplied cultural objects to Latchford and others, the New York Times reported.
The area where Lion said the sculpture was dug up was the scene of ancient battles between Ankorian troops, Chams and Viets, Gordon said.
“The local people understand or believe that the area was part of the Cham kingdom about 1,000 years ago. We do know that in the 1700s parts of the royal family fled to this part of Cambodia. So there are reasons why these treasures might have been here: either it goes way back in the early days of the Champa kingdom, or when the royal family returned,” he said.
Gordon said Latchford’s files and computer records indicated a couple of hundred Cham statues might have been taken from this region and sold to museums and collectors.
The story of the NGA’s Cham trio was corroborated by a man known as the Falcon, who claimed to have overseen the excavation team and said he vividly recalled the find in November 1994.
With new evidence available, Campbell sought further advice from Crennan about the standard of proof required. The advice came back that a balance of probabilities was sufficient for a provenance rather than the criminal standard that would be needed in a prosecution.
Campbell said: “The first public mention of these objects was by John Guy, the curator of Asian art at the Met, who published the main sculpture in 2004 as part of a lecture on Asian art. But he told us he had seen them in Latchford’s apartment in the mid-90s in London.
Guy is not implicated in any wrongdoing.
“In 2001 the vajrapani – one of the attendants – was in the hands of … a dealer who was close to Latchford, who was trying to sell it,” Campbell said.
By 2007 they were reunited as a trio. Latchford’s correspondence shows him attempting to sell them to an American customer around this time.
One of the main concerns for the NGA has been to be sure of returning the sculpture to the correct government.
The testimony uncovered by the Cambodian research team was the missing link. The three sculptures were removed from the collection in December 2021, pending final resolution of the research.
The Australian public should still have time to see the sculptures in the NGA, as they are likely to remain there for three years while the national museum in Phnom Penh is upgraded.
The gallery’s director, Nick Mitzevich, said at the official handover it was the longest loan the Cambodian government had done, calling it “a role model for greater cooperation”.
Gordon’s search for Cambodian treasures continues.
“We have put in a request to the NGA for another 10 statutes, but they are doing more research about them as to whether they are Cambodian or Thai. We are talking to the Thais about how we can work together on those,” he said.
Cambodia may not demand the return of all objects traced to Latchford’s looting. Gordon said some, once retrieved, could be loaned back to the galleries that hold them, depending on their cultural importance.
