Tag Archives: Tamil Nadu

UPDATED > Trouble in Toledo: Feds Investigate Stolen Ganesh, Other Objects from Kapoor at Toledo Museum

Posted on February 24, 2014 | 5 comments

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Let the Lotus Feet of Lord Ganesha, from whom scriptures sprout, confer
on us unmixed blessings. Like thunderbolts, let them shatter away hurdles
that are heaped like mountains.

─ Prayers to Ganesha

UPDATE 10/2/14: The Toledo Museum announced it would return the looted bronze Ganesh to India. Museum officials told the Toledo Blade that its Art Committee voted to return the bronze in late August after deciding the statue closely resembled a Ganesh stolen from an India temple. That resemblance was first noted by Vijay Kumar, who carefully detailed the similarities between Toledo’s Ganesh and one identified as stolen from the Sivan Temple by India’s Idol Wing police unit since 2009. 

UPDATE 2/27: The federal government is investigating the Toledo Museum’s acquisition of a bronze Ganesh and 63 other objects acquired from Kapoor. In an email, museum spokeswoman Kelly Garrow confirmed that Department of Justice officials in New York’s Southern District contacted the museum on Feb 21st to request records related to the musem’s dealings with Kapoor. The museum may have also been contacted by Indian authorities: “We are currently working with government officials from the United States of America and India on this matter,” Garrow said. 

On July 18, 2013 I wrote to Brian Kennedy, the director of the Toledo Museum, requesting information about a Chola-era bronze Ganesh that the museum acquired in 2006 from Manhattan antiquities dealer Subhash Kapoor. As my colleague Vijay Kumar first noted, the sculpture appears identical to one identified as stolen from the Sivan Temple by India’s Idol Wing police unit since 2009.

Brian KennedyNoting the match, I requested information on the ownership history of the Ganesh and all other objects the Toledo Museum acquired from Kapoor. It was a request I had first made of the museum a year earlier, with no response.

Toledo’s reply last July was to continue to stonewall: “Our policy is to respond to requests about objects in the TMA collections made by official authorities such as museums, law enforcement agencies, foreign governments and those making legal claims to ownership,” spokeswoman Kelly Garrow told me. “There have been no such inquiries to date in regard to the objects referred to in your email.” In other words, in Toledo’s view the public has no right to know the ownership history of objects in the museum’s collection, even when serious legal questions have been raised.

imagesWith Kapoor’s criminal trial in India for the Sivan thefts set to begin March 7, this week the Toledo Museum reversed that wrongheaded position and released a list of 64 objects it acquired from Kapoor between 2001 and 2010. The museum attributed the move to the information I provided Kennedy on July 18th – with no explanation for the seven month delay. The museum also said it had contacted Indian authorities in July seeking additional information about the objects.

“This is a very stressful situation for us, as we always strive to be absolutely meticulous concerning provenance before purchasing any work of art,” Kennedy wrote to the Indian Consul for Culture in New York in July. “If you could offer us any assistance in our continued research on this piece we would be most grateful.”  Toledo said it has not heard back from Indian authorities.   

We can now answer some of the museum’s questions about the Ganesh. According to documents we’ve recently obtained, it was stolen from an Indian temple shortly the museum bought it in 2006 for $245,000 with the thinnest of fake ownership histories.

GANESH

Vinayagar Toledo

The Toledo Ganesh was stolen from the Sivan Temple in Tamil Nadu India in late 2005 or early 2006. According to Indian investigators, Kapoor traveled to Tamil Nadu a year earlier and met with Sanjivi Asokan, the alleged head of a ring of idol thieves in the region. Kapoor asked for Chola-era bronzes, which were in high demand on the art market. Over the next several months, Asokan allegedly hired thieves who — for 700,000 rupees, or about USD$12,000 — broke into the Sivan Temple and stole the Ganesh and seven other idols show below.

Sivan Temple idols

On his blog Poetry in Stone, Kumar has carefully detailed the evidence linking the Toledo Ganesh with that shown in the Idol Wing photos. There is little doubt about the match.

Records we have obtained go further. They include photos of the Ganesh that were sent to Kapoor by Indian thieves soon after it was stolen. An invoice shows the Toledo Museum purchased the Ganesh in May, 2006, soon after its theft, for $245,000. India’s Idol Police posted details of the theft, including images of the Ganesh, in 2009.

Toledo now insists it conducted proper due diligence: “At the time of purchase consideration, the Museum received a provenance affidavit and the curator personally spoke to the listed previous owner.  The object was also run through the Art Loss Registry with no issues detected.”

We’ve previously discussed why a search certificate from the Art Loss Register is meaningless for antiquities. As for the “previous owner” Toledo contacted, it was none other than Kapoor’s girlfriend Selina Mohamed, who was criminally charged in December by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office with participated in a decades-long conspiracy to launder stolen antiquities by creating false ownership histories. Among the provenances she is charged with fabricating is that of the Toledo Ganesh, records show.

In the letter – dated Jan 2, 2006 on Art of the Past letterhead – Mohamed claimed to have inherited the sculpture from her mother, Rajpati Singh Mohamad, who was said to have purchased it on a trip to India in 1971 – the year before India passed its Antiquities and Art Treasures Act. Mohamed claimed to have had possession of the sculpture in New York since that date. Such convenient out-of-source-country-just-before-ownership-law-passed dates are often used is false ownership histories, and should be a red flag to curators.

In the end, the Toledo Museum’s “absolutely meticulous” due diligence process relied on a single sheet of paper that turns out to have been fabricated.

Carolyn-Putney1

It also raises the question: Did Carolyn Putney – Toledo’s curator of asian art since 2001, when the museum first did business with Kapoor – not know that Mohamed had long been Kapoor’s girlfriend and business partner?

We’ll have more on Toledo’s other troubling Kapoor acquisitions soon.

 

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A Family Affair: Kapoor’s Sister Charged With Hiding Looted Idols

Posted on October 14, 2013 | 5 comments

The Manhattan District Attorney’s office has charged the sister of Manhattan antiquities dealer Subhash Kapoor with attempting to hide from federal authorities four stolen bronze sculptures worth $14.5 million.

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Kapoor after his arrest and extradition to India

Sushma Sareen was charged on October 7 with four counts of felony possession of stolen property. According the criminal complaint, Sareen took over Kapoor’s business after his arrest in Germany in 2012 and began running it with Kapoor’s daughter Mamta Sager. Ever since, Sareen has been closely involved with the business, traveling to India, assisting with wire transfers and contacting smugglers, the complaint alleges.

Sareen was released on $10,000 bond. Her lawyer Scott E. Leemon told the New York Times that Sareen denied the charges. See our past coverage of the Kapoor case here.

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Bronze Shiva Natarajah stolen from an Indian temple in 2008

The Chola-era bronzes she attempted to hide are among 14 that were stolen in February 2008 from the Varadharajah Perumi temple in Suthamally Village of Tamil Nadu, India, the complaint alleges. The idols were allegedly stolen for Kapoor by a crew hired by his accomplice Sanjeevi Ashokan. According to Indian investigators, Ashokan “used to select Chola period temples, which were in ruins, for committing theft of antique idols, as theft in such temples would not be known soon after the crime. For identifying temples to commit the crime, he used to refer to books such as South Indian Bronzes, Master pieces of Indian Sculptures and Survey Maps.” In all, 18 idols were stolen from a dilapidated temple during two days in February 2008. They were transported in a truck to Chennai, the Tamil Nadu capital, where many were provided to Ashokan, who paid Rs. 25 lakhs, or about $50,000.

Shiva Nataraja

Shiva Nataraja shown in Kapoor’s Art of the Past 2010 catalog

Ashokan allegedly exported the idols in a shipment mixed with modern handicrafts through the Chennai Port on March 6, 2008 to Union Link Int. Movers (HK) Inc in Hong Kong. Kapoor paid Ashokan more than 1 million rupees, or roughly US$230,000, through HSBC bank for the idols, Indian investigators allege. Shipping documents seized by U.S. federal agents appear to support that conclusion. The complaint says the shipping records show the 14 idols were illegally exported from India to Hong Kong along with otherwise legal shipments of “new Indian artistic handicrafts.”

The complaint also spells out the early stages of the Kapoor investigation and reveals that federal agents have recruited several insiders — including a member of Kapoor’s staff and a person who posed as a private collector — as informants in their investigation of Kapoor, who they have described as “one of the most prolific commodities smugglers in the world.”

That investigation appears to have begun in 2007, when a person described as “Informant #1” was arrested in California and pled guilty to a customs violation. The defendant began cooperating with federal investigators, who asked Informant 1 to contact Subhash Kapoor and employees of his Madison Avenue  gallery Art of the Past.

Informant 1 began asking Kapoor and his staff for “fresh” antiquities, a euphemism for objects that had recently been looted or stolen. In a 2008 visit to Kapoor’s gallery, Informant 1 was offered a stolen 12th century sculpture of the dancing Hindu got Shiva Nataraja for $3.5 million.

In September 2011, Informant 1 recorded a meeting with Kapoor in which he was offered the $3.5 million Shiva and another Shiva valued at $5 million, both of which were on display in the gallery. Kapoor said he had been holding the objects for a few years and expected them to appreciate by 10 to 15% a year. Both had been displayed in Kapoor’s catalogs and other catalogs, including the Asia Week New York 2009.

Emails obtained by federal agents show Kapoor also was shopping two other Chola bronzes: a Uma Parameshvari valued at $2.5 million and a $3.5 million Uma Parvati.

Sivagami Amman Alias Thani Amman IFP No. 2236-1

Figure of Uma Parvati shown in its original setting in an Indian temple 

Uma Parvati shown in Kapoor’s Art of the Past catalogue

In November 2011, Kapoor instructed an employee to send the four bronzes to the apartment of Selina Mohamad. After federal agents searched Kapoor’s gallery in Jan 2012, Mohamad asked that the statues to be moved. Sareen allegedly moved them to a “safe location.”

It is not clear where the bronze idols are today. Kapoor is currently being held in a Chennai jail awaiting trial.

Here is the criminal complaint against his sister:

UPDATE: Vijay Kumar’s site Poetry in Stone has posted a detailed analysis of these and other Kapoor objects. Check it out: http://poetryinstone.in/

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UPDATED: At Looted Temple In India, Locals Unwittingly Worship a Fake

Posted on July 24, 2013 | 6 comments

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UPDATED BELOW

Earlier this month we revealed that a 900-year-old Indian sculpture at Sydney’s Art Gallery of New South Wales (above) was stolen from an Indian temple and sold to the museum in 2004 by Manhattan antiquities dealer Subhash Kapoor.

We now have current pictures of the Vriddachalam temple in Tamil Nadu, where a modern replica (below) is today worshipped in place of the stolen piece.

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Both the ancient and the modern sculptures represent Ardhanarisvara, a manifestation of the Hindu god Shiva and his lover Parvati. According to Vijay Kumar, an authority on Tamil Nadu temple sculptures, the current sculpture was installed in 2002 during a temple ritual. A local elder told Kumar that the original was stolen sometime in the 1980s. The replacement statue appears to be modern, Kumar notes, because of the position of the right hand: “Iconography stipulates that the hand lay flat on the head of the bull…But the sculptor who did this was most certainly a novice who [while] good in sculpting does not know the agamas (liturgical texts) well!”

In a recent report in The Hindu, journalist A. Srivathsan noted that temple authorities were not aware the original sculpture had been stolen. Srivathsan went on to describe the significance of the discovery:

With this revelation, that came during ongoing investigations involving Subhash Chandra Kapoor, a United States-based antiquities dealer arrested and jailed for his alleged involvement in an idol theft case, it has become apparent that the looting of Indian temple treasures is far more rampant than what was hitherto assumed or known. And, it would seem that even big and well-known temples have not been spared.

Ardhanarishvara receiptWhen The Hindu informed local authorities about the theft, the case was immediately referred to the Idol Wing of the Tamil Nadu police for investigation. Kapoor is facing trial in the coming months in the Tamil Nadu capital of Chennai in a case built by the Idol Wing with the help of American investigators, who have seized more than $100 million in allegedly looted art from Kapoor. (Find our previous Kapoor coverage here.)

The Hindu also dug into a 1970 receipt (above) provided to the museum by Kapoor, who has been known to forge false ownership histories in other cases.

When The Hindu traced out the shop, which still exists in Old Delhi, and spoke to one of the sons of Uttam Singh over the phone, he said he was not aware of such a sale. He also clarified that his deceased father Uttam Singh signed only in Urdu. The receipt produced by the Australian gallery bears no signature.

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As Michaela Boland has noted in The Australian, authorities at the Art Gallery of New South Wales would have realized the statue they purchased for $300,000 had been stolen if they had simply walked seven minutes across town to the state library of New South Wales. There Douglas E. Barrett’s 1974 book Early Cola Architecture and Sculpture, 866-1014 AD has an image of the sculpture in its original context in the Vriddachalam temple.

Boland quotes Damien Huffer, archaeologist and author of the excellent blog It Surfaced Down Under, saying that the publication clearly establishes the sculpture was removed illegally from India, which has required a permit for the export of antiquities since 1972. Huffer also descries the lack of research performed by museum curators:

“For a museum or gallery to truly perform due diligence requires that they bring all of their often considerable resources to bear to assess all available published information, and not merely what the dealer suggests.”

The case shows once again that today investigators and journalists around the world are doing the research that museums should have done years ago.

UPDATE 7/29: Michaela Boland at The Australian has written a story with the latest developments, noting that Tamil Nadu authorities have been notified of the theft and are investigating. She includes this tidbit suggesting a failure of due diligence at Australian museums: “A researcher at the French Institute [ of Pondicherry, a research unit funded by the French government which maintains a database of significant antiquities in southern India] told The Australian that in 21 years he did not field an inquiry from an Australian art gallery researching Indian artefacts, despite the institute’s well-known database intended to serve exactly that purpose.” Boland also quotes Art Gallery NSW director Michael Brand saying he is “feeling a strong sense of deja vu,” a reference to his handling of similar antiquities scandals at the Getty Museum in 2007.

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Lost and Found: Images Show Art Gallery NSW’s Sculpture Was Stolen From An Indian Temple

Posted on July 1, 2013 | 5 comments

A 900-year-old Indian statue at Sydney’s Art Gallery of New South Wales was stolen from an Indian temple sometime after 1974, newly identified images show.

Ardhanarishvara

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Last week, the Art Gallery NSW released provenance records for the Chola-era sculpture of Ardhanarishvara which it purchased in 2004 for more than $300,000. The documents were supplied by Subhash Kapoor, the prominent Manhattan antiquities dealer who sold the sculpture to the museum. (Previous Kapoor coverage here.) The records claim a New York antiquities collector had purchased the sculpture in 1970 from a handicraft dealer in Dehli and held it ever since.

Today we can say that ownership history, like others supplied by Kapoor, was fabricated. Images identified by Poetry in Stone, a blog that celebrates South Asian temple sculpture, show the statue was in situ at the Vriddhachalam temple in Tamil Nadu, India for at least four years after 1970 and was subsequently stolen.

The image above left shows the sculpture in Sydney as it looks today. The image above right was published in Douglas Barrett’s 1974 book Early Chola Architecture and Sculpture 866 – 1014 and shows the sculpture in its original context at the Vriddhachalam temple.

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How the identification was made

The discovery of the sculpture’s origin is a result of rapid international collaboration. After requests from Jason and The Australian’s Michaela Boland, the Art Gallery NSA released the Kapoor provenance documents on June 25. On June 28th, A. Srivathsan at The Hindu wrote a story about the recent Kapoor revelations with a link to ChasingAphrodite.com

vj poetryinstone

One of the people who read the story was Vijay Kumar, the creator of Poetry in Stone. Kumar came to this site, saw our post on the Ardhanarishvara and recognized it immediately.

Four years earlier, Kumar had published an iconographic study of Ardhanarishvara, the androgynous manifestation of the Hindu god Shiva and his lover Parvati. One of the temple sculptures he singled out as the “perfect form” of the god was in the Vriddhachalam temple:

You can see the female portion in full triple flexion ( tribanga) and to compensate for it, the right leg of Shiva is bent fully. This causes the male torso to lean at the awkward angle and though the sculpture would look pleasing it would not be aesthetically appealing. So he comes up with an ingenious solution. Make Shiva rest or lean on to something and the readily available option is his mount or vehicle – Nandhi. Presto, problem solved. Add lots of beautiful ornamentation, develop the differences in the dressing style and this perfected model becomes a standard for all Ardhanari images henceforth.

When Kumar recognized the Sydney sculpture as the very same “perfect model,” he dug through his files and found the 1974 plate in the Barrett book and other records of the statue, which was well documented in its original context. Here is an image of the statue in situ with a Tamil inscription above the niche from the archives of the American Academy of Benares, Varanasi:

0 RIn an email to me today, Kumar wrote:

“This particular form was my personal favorite as its beauty appealed to me in a queer form: despite two of the main limbs, the hands mutilated, the sculpture still retained its sinuous grace. If you were to look at an ordinary piece of art with such a deformity your eye would instantly go to the broken parts. However, in this piece unless someone specifically points it out to you, at first glance you tend to miss the broken hands! Apart from that, the brilliant ornamentation and their swaying etc. are wonderfully sculpted. The ear of the bull comes a bit out of the composition as well. Overall the contours of the kosta block itself are unique as well and offer the vital clue.”

Coincidently, Kumar is a native of Chennai, the Tamil Nadu capital where Kapoor is currently facing trial. He currently lives in Singapore but has reached out to contacts in Tamil Nadu to determine when and how the sculpture was stolen from the Vriddhachalam temple. We’ll keep you posted on what he finds out.

Michael Brand

Michael Brand

Meanwhile, the revelations raise several questions. When will other museums release provenance information provided by Kapoor? If the Art Gallery NSW sculpture had been so widely published, why did the museum not identify it as stolen before the 2004 acquisition? And how will the museum’s director Michael Brand respond to compelling new evidence that objects acquired before his arrival in Sydney were apparently stolen and smuggled out of India.

Brand, whose specialty is South Asia art, faced similar questions at the Getty Museum and did the right thing.

Will he now?

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Coming Clean: Australia’s Art Gallery of New South Wales Releases Kapoor Documents

Posted on June 25, 2013 | 5 comments

imgresThe Art Gallery of New South Wales has released provenance information for one of the six objects it purchased from Subhash Kapoor, the New York antiquities dealer currently facing trial in India for trafficking in looted art. (Past coverage here.)

UPDATE 8/18/14: Indian authorities have concluded the Ardhanarishvara sculpture described below was stolen from the Vridhdhagiriswarar Temple in Tamil Nadu India in 2002. The thieves have not been identified, but two years later Kapoor sold the sculpture to AGNSW for $400,000 with a false ownership history.

The release comes in the wake of our revelations about looted objects at the National Gallery of Australia, which acquired 21 objects from Kapoor, including a $5 million sculpture of Shiva that was stolen from an Indian temple not long before it was offered to the museum with bogus ownership history. The NGA has refused multiple requests to release provenance information on any of the objects in its collection, despite compelling evidence several of those objects were looted.

We made similar requests to Sydney’s Art Gallery of New South Wales, which has acknowledged acquiring six objects from Kapoor between 1994 and 2004. Last week, the museum posted information about the Kapoor objects on the provenance research section of its website, which had previously been dedicated to European paintings. After consulting with his board, museum director Michael Brand released on Tuesday the ownership history provided by Kapoor for one of those objects.

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Ardhanarishvara

In 2004, the Gallery purchased this Chola-period sculpture from Kapoor for more than $300,000. The 44-inch stone figure represents Ardhanarishvara, the androgynous form of Shiva and Parvati. It comes from Tamil Nadu, home to some 2500 important temples to Shiva. The image of Ardhanarishvara was likely in a niche on an external wall.

Kapoor provided two documents with the sculpture.

One is a receipt dated 1970, purportedly from Uttam Singh and Sons, the Delhi “copper and brass palace” that sold the sculpture to a private collector.

Ardhanarishvara receipt

The second document purports to be a 2003 “Letter of Provenance” on letterhead from Art of the Past, Kapoor’s Madison Ave. gallery. It is signed by “Raj Mehgoub,” who claims to be the wife of a diplomat who lived in Delhi from 1968 to 1971.

Aradhanareshwara prov

It is unclear whether the documents are genuine. Uttam Singh and Sons appears to be a real business in Delhi, but we could not reach the owners and did not find record of a Raj or Abdulla Mehgoub.

The documents bear a striking resemblance to other ownership records provided by Kapoor that appear to have been falsified. See, for example, this receipt from a Calcutta gallery for a pair of statues that photos show were in India recently:

Dwarapalas receipt

The Art Gallery of New South Wales acknowledges it did not obtain provenance information for the other five objects acquired from Kapoor, whose total value was about $100,000. The museum says it has not yet been contacted by Indian or American authorities investigating Kapoor.

Michael Brand

Despite lapses in the past, the Gallery should be congratulated for its transparent approach in the current case. Clearly Michael Brand learned from his experience at the Getty Museum, where — as we recount in Chasing Aphrodite — his predecessors’ stonewalling of Italian investigators prolonged the Getty’s troubles for years.

Other museums should follow the Gallery’s lead and use their provenance websites to publish all relevant information about antiquities obtained from Kapoor.

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SCOOP: New Evidence Of Stolen Idols at the National Gallery of Australia

Posted on June 4, 2013 | 11 comments
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This 900-year-old bronze statue of Dancing Shiva, shown on display at the National Gallery of Australia, was stolen from a temple in Tamil Nadu, India shortly before the museum acquired it, new records show.

UPDATE 11/6: The NGA has released a statement saying there is no “conclusive evidence” the sculpture was stolen. See below.

UPDATE 6/12: Since publishing this post we’ve received documents that show the National Gallery of Art purchased the Dancing Shiva (above) for $5 million, not the $2 million originally stated below and in other media reports.

Last July, we wrote that the arrest of Indian antiquities dealer Subhash Kapoor would test the museum world’s commitment to transparency.

subhash kapoor

Federal investigators in the United States have seized more than $100 million in allegedly looted art from the Manhattan dealer, who they describe as “one of the most prolific commodities smugglers in the world.” In previous posts, we have identified suspect Kapoor objects at museums around the world, including the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, which acquired 21 objects from Kapoor.

RadfordSo far, the NGA has failed the transparency test. As a member of the International Council of Museums, the museum is bound by a code of ethics that requires it to be open about its collection. But museum officials have refused to identify or release collecting histories for the 21 objects. Instead, the NGA created an investigative committee that includes the two museum officials most responsible for the Kapoor acquisitions: museum director Ron Radford (left) and senior curator of Asian art Robyn Maxwell.

The museum has promised to cooperate with investigators, but in May, Indian officials complained that the NGA had refused to respond to a formal request for information. (The museum claims it never received the request.) Last week Radford was asked about the case during a hearing of Australia’s senate, but would not divulge additional information, saying only that he was confident none of the Kapoor objects had been looted.

Radford’s confidence is sorely misplaced. In the coming days, ChasingAphrodite.com will publish new information about several of the objects the NGA acquired from Kapoor. The records, obtained from sources with knowledge of the on-going investigations, show that several of the objects were illegally removed from Indian temples shortly before Kapoor offered them to Radford, Maxwell and other NGA officials. Many of the objects were accompanied by false provenance papers. Those ownership histories are belied by evidence seized from Kapoor, including photographs sent to him by smugglers soon after the idols had been removed from Indian temples.

The Lord of Dance

In 2008, the NGA paid Kapoor $5 million $2 million for a bronze Nataraja, or Dancing Shiva. The more than 4-foot (130 cm.) tall figure depicts the Hindu god as the Lord of Dance, prancing in a ring of flames as he steps on the head of a dwarf who represents ignorance. Shiva is ushering in the destruction of the weary universe so that the god Brahma may restart the process of creation. It is a common theme in Indian mythology, particularly in the Tamil temples of southern India.

Kapoor provided the museum with a document stating that he had purchased the bronze from a Washington D.C. man in October 2004. He also signed a warranty prepared by the museum that transferred title to the NGA and indemnified the museum in case of a breach.

Shiva Natraja1

The story of the Washington owner was a fabrication, the records show. This photo of the Nataraja (left) was sent to Kapoor by smugglers in October 2006. Sources say it was taken soon after the  idol was stolen from the Sivan Temple in the village of Sree Puranthan in Tamil Nadu, where it and several other large bronze idols were worshiped before the temple fell into ruin.

According to Indian investigators, a year earlier Kapoor had traveled to Tamil Nadu and met with Sanjivi Asokan, the alleged head of a ring of idol thieves in the region. Kapoor asked for Chola-era bronzes, which were in high demand on the art market. Over the next several months, Asokan allegedly hired thieves who — for 700,000 rupees, or about USD$12,000 — broke into the Sivan Temple and stole the eight idols shown below (Shiva at top left.)Sivan Temple idolsThe idols were allegedly mingled with replicas to convince a government official to certify them as modern handicrafts. They were exported by Ever Star International Services Inc. to New York, where they were received by Kapoor’s company Nimbus Imports Exports in the fall of 2006. For his trouble, Asokan was allegedly paid about USD$200,000.

In April 2007, Kapoor obtained a certificate from the Art Loss Register saying the Shiva had not been registered as stolen property. ALR had no basis to know the Shiva had been stolen — the theft was only discovered by villagers in 2008. But Kapoor was not required to provide any provenance information for the bronze, despite ALR’s public claim that “certificates are not issued on the basis of incomplete or inadequately researched information.”

shiva.kapoorKapoor included the Shiva in the catalog of his Madison Avenue gallery Art of the Past with the above photo and this description:

Shiva as the Nataraja, The Lord of the Dance, is the symbol par excellence of South Asian art. It is the full and perfect expression of divine totality—the manifestation of pure, primal rhythmic power. Shiva simultaneously dances the universe into existence by awakening inert matter with the rhythmic pulse of movement, sustains this existence, and sends all form into destruction….

This is the largest, most significant Chola Period sculpture of this subject to appear on the market in a generation.

There are many bronze sculptures of Nataraja, and they all share certain basic characteristics. But even to a lay eye, the similarities between the Shiva shown in the smuggler’s photos and the one on display at the NGA are apparent. For example, looking closely at the individual flames surrounding Shiva, most have tails to the left, center and middle of the flame. In both the smugglers and the NGA’s Shiva, however, the first and second flames on the top left and the third flame on the top right have tails to the right and left, but none in the middle.

Here is a photo of the Shiva from behind, also sent to Kapoor by the alleged smugglers in 2006. It gives more context for the room, which does not appear to be on Madison Avenue or in Washington D.C.

Shiva Nataraja2

Kapoor, Asokan and the alleged thieves have all been arrested and are currently being tried in India for the Sivan Temple thefts. Meanwhile, American officials with the Department of Homeland Security’s HSI team have issued an arrest warrant for Kapoor in the U.S. and are pursuing their own investigation of museums that acquired objects from him.

We’ll soon post additional documents and photos of Kapoor objects at the NGA and other museums. Meanwhile, institutions that did business with Kapoor would be wise to 1) publicly disclose complete copies of the collecting history for those objects and 2) proactively contact U.S. and Indian investigators.

UPDATE: On Nov 6, 2013, the museum released the following statement from its attorney:

The National Gallery of Australia believes there is yet to emerge any conclusive evidence to demonstrate that the 11th-12th century bronze sculpture of Shiva as Lord of the Dance [Shiva Nataraja] in its collection was stolen or illegally exported from India. The Gallery notes that criminal proceedings against Art of the Past dealer Subhash Kapoor are ongoing.

If, at the end of the legal process, the courts determine that this Shiva Nataraja was stolen and illegally exported, the Gallery will have been a victim of fraud. The Indian Government may request the Australian Government to return the work if it is found to have been stolen or illegally exported from India. The court has made no findings in relation to the sculpture.

In the meantime, the Gallery will continue to cooperate with the relevant authorities including the Indian High Commission.

 

 

 

 

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Feds: Subhash Kapoor “one of the most prolific commodities smugglers in the world.”

Posted on December 6, 2012 | 28 comments

SAC Hayes seized itemsICE

Federal authorities announced this week that they have seized an estimated $100 million worth of ancient art linked to Subhash Kapoor, the New York art dealer currently facing trial in India — and an arrest warrant in the United States — for his alleged role in an international antiquities smuggling network.

For some perspective on that number, the FBI’s art squad has seized a total of $150 million in art since its inception in 2004, according to its website.

subhash kapoor“In our view, Mr Kapoor is one of the most prolific commodities smugglers in the world,” said Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent in Charge James T. Hayes (shown above with the seized objects.) “It’s one of our most significant antiquities and artifacts investigations that we’ve conducted in the history of this agency.”

Our past coverage of the Kapoor case and museums that have material from him can be found here.

The seizures revealed Wednesday were valued at $5 million and secured with cooperation from Customs and Border Protection, the Manhattan DA’s office, Interpol and Indian authorities. They include a 14th Century bronze Parvati figure from the Chola dynasty that was surrendered to ICE by an unnamed dealer in Europe. “Even though the statue had been placed on the Interpol Stolen Works of Art Database, the Parvati had passed through the hands of six different dealers and been given multiple layers of false provenance over the past six years,”  Hayes said. In addition, four bronze figures were seized in recent months that are believed to have been stolen from temples in Tamil Nadu.

Parvati ICEHayes stressed that the Kapoor investigation, dubbed Operation Hidden Idol, was on-going as agents continue to dig into Kapoor’s four decades as a Manhattan dealer whose gallery Art of the Past sold objects to museums around the world. Those include some of the more than 200 objects sold by Kapoor that we’ve identified in previous posts.

Hayes urged collectors and museums that had purchased objects from Kapoor to come forward and notify investigators.

“We ask that those collectors contact us,” Hayes said. “Our investigation is on-going and we’re looking to confirm the legitimacy of those objects. We have already received several calls from law firms representing people who had acquired pieces through Kapoor and were concerned about whether they were in possession of stolen goods.”

I took the opportunity to ask Hayes about ICE’s work combating the antiquities trade. To their credit, ICE has significantly ramped up their investigations of the illicit trade in recent years: more than 6,600 artifacts have been returned to 24 countries since 2007. But critics note that those forfeitures and flashy repatriation ceremonies with foreign officials have often not been followed by criminal charges against key players in the trade.

ICE“The focus is always to return stolen property to its rightful owners,” Hayes acknowledged, saying making criminal cases was desirable, but challenging. “You have to have a legal basis to prove those items, and you have to prove certain things and that proves very difficult. We’re dealing with laws around the world, in foreign courts and different jurisdictions.”

To be sure, ICE investigators have played an important role in several recent criminal investigations that led to guilty pleas, including Arnold Peter Weiss and Morris Khouli. “From where I sit, we’re very focused on putting those smuggling networks out of business,” Hayes said. “At the end of the day, our primary responsibility is to get stolen property back to its rightful owners.”

 

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Canada’s Royal Ontario Museum Has Ties To Alleged Antiquities Trafficker Subhash Kapoor

Posted on October 23, 2012 | 7 comments

UPDATED: In recent years Canada’s Royal Ontario Museum has acquired eight objects from Art of the Past, the Manhattan antiquities gallery specializing in South Asian art that is now the focus of an international investigation into its owner’s alleged ties to the illicit antiquities trade.

The now shuttered gallery is owned Subhash Kapoor, the American antiquities dealer of Indian extraction who has sold ancient art to museums and private collectors around the world since 1974. As we’ve reported previously, Kapoor was arrested in Germany last year and extradited to India, where he facing charges of trafficking in looted Asian antiquities and being the mastermind of a network of temple looters operating in Tamil Nadu. In July, American authorities issued an arrest warrant for Kapoor and seized $20 million worth of ancient art from his Manhattan warehouse. Indian investigators have also asked authorities in Australia, Singapore and the United Kingdom for help with their expanding investigation.

We’ve previously traced more that 200 Kapoor objects to museums around the globe. We can now add the Royal Ontario Museum to that list. Six of the Kapoor objects at the ROM are modern works on paper, a specialty of Kapoor’s that are not the subject of the current investigation. Two other objects, however, may be of interest to investigators.

The first is a Ghandaran stone reliquary from the 1st to 2nd century A.D.. in the shape of a stuppa that was featured in the museum’s 2004-2005 newsletter. “Purchased through the generous support of the Louise Hawley Stone Charitable Trust, the ROM acquired a beautiful Buddhist Reliquary dated to the 2nd century CE,” the newsletter said. “The outer container is made of steatite, a grayish stone common to the region of Gandhara, in presentday western Pakistan. The inner container is carved from rock crystal and is decorated with stunning gold granular ornamentation, a testament to the level of skill in ancient gold craftsmanship. The ROM’s reliquary would have contained the relics (ash, bone, precious metals) of an important Buddhist monk and would have been placed in the centre of a large burial mound, called a ‘stupa.'”

UPDATE: In response to our questions, a museum spokeswoman said, “The Gandharan Reliquary was in the personal collection of a well-known US-based collector since 1969. A signed letter by the owner is on file at the museum and ownership was confirmed through direct contact with the collector.” We’ve requested the identity of the collector and any underlying documents to support that provenance and will post them when we have them.

The Taliban-controlled region of western Pakistan where the Gandharan culture thrived centuries ago has been the subject of extensive looting in recent years.

The second Kapoor object of interest is an 18th century bronze figure of Krishna Venugopala. While not ancient, it is listed as coming from Orissa or Bengal, India. It is not clear when the piece left India or whether it received the required export permit. Kapoor is alleged to have used false export permits to disguise stolen cultural objects as garden furniture or modern handicrafts.

UPDATE: The ROM museum apparently purchased this object in 2006 with no record of legal export. A museum spokeswoman tells us: “The statue of Krishna from Bengal or Orissa was in a UK-based collection since 1970. There is no documentation on file at the museum and we continue to investigate its provenance further.” We’ve requested details on the UK-based collection and will post it here when we get it.

Beyond the objects purchased from Kapoor, the museum has an extensive collection of recently acquired objects from South Asia that are of interest, some of which were acquired recently. (In an email, a museum official notes the South Asia collection has been built since the founding of the museum, with most of the historical collection coming into the museum in the 1920s to 1950s.)

For example, this 10th century figure of a yogini from the Chola dynasty of Southern India was acquired in 1956  in 2004. It is described by the museum as “part of a dispersed set of goddessed [sic] that occupied a temple in the Tamil region of southern India,” an area known for the rampant looting of temple idols. When did the group of objects leave the temple? Does it have a legal export permit from India? The museum is silent on these questions.

UPDATE: A museum official notes the object was acquired in 1956. “It is part of a set of similar sculptures dispersed across museums in India (Government Museum Chennai), Europe (British Museum, Guimet), and North America (Asian Art Museum San Francisco, Freer Sackler Galleries, and others). This set has been extensively documented and its collecting history published in a new book: Scattered Goddesses: Travels with the Yoginis by Padma Kaimal, 2012.”

Then there’s the ROM’s bronze dancing Shiva from Chola dynasty of the 12th century A.D., also from the Tamil region. The Shiva bears  some resemblance to those that Indian authorities said were allegedly removed from Tamil temples by looters in recent years. (One has allegedly been linked to Australia’s National Gallery of Art.) The ROM’s description of the object notes, “Such bronze sculptures were predominantly produced from the Chola period onward, a dynasty of kings that ruled over much of southern India from the ninth to the twelfth centuries AD. They were housed in temples and regularly brought out and decorated for processions.” Again, when did this particular object leave India, and did it have a valid export permit? UPDATE: A museum official says the Nataraja was acquired in 1938.

In a statement about the Kapoor objects, museum spokeswoman Shelagh O’Donnell said, “Following museum policy, each acquisition was carefully investigated in terms of quality, authenticity and provenance. The antiquities in this group have been documented as having acceptable provenance from published auctions or from known private collections. The modern works comply with all current Indian export regulations. The ROM is in the process of re-examining the documentation for this group of objects.”

On October 3rd, we asked the ROM to provide the underlying documentation supporting the ‘acceptable provenance’ for several of the above objects. We have not received a response. We’ll let you know when we learn more.

Here is the full list of Kapoor objects released by the museum:

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Kapoor Case: Investigation into Stolen Indian Idols Will Test Museum Transparency

Posted on July 30, 2012 | 8 comments

Subhash Kapoor

The investigation of antiquities dealer Subhash Kapoor, which made international headlines this week when federal agents raided his Manhattan warehouse, promises to shine a bright light on the illicit trade in antiquities smuggled out of India and other South Asian countries — and the dealer’s ties to prominent museums around the world.

New York authorities issued an arrest warrant for Kapoor, the longtime owner of Madison Avenue gallery Art of the Past, the same day that agents with Immigration and Custom’s Enforcement seized what they said were $20 million worth of stolen Indian artifacts from his Manhattan storage facilities. The seized objects include three Chola period statues that investigators say match objects in Interpol’s database of stolen works of art. Some objects were imported into the U.S. labelled “Marble Garden Table Sets.” An additional $10 million in antiquities were quietly seized from Kapoor in January of this year.

The seized objects are likely the tip of the iceberg of the dealer’s inventory. Since 1974, Kapoor has traded in ancient art from India, Afghanistan, Southeast Asia and the Islamic world, as well as more recent art from India. A sample of his recent inventory can been seen in this 2011 catalog for Art of the Past.

Kapoor’s legal troubles extend far beyond New York. He was detained in Germany in October 2011 and this month extradited to Chennai, India, where he is facing criminal charges of being the mastermind of an idol smuggling ring that plundered ancient temples in Tamil Nadu. Kapoor has reportedly admitted to Indian police that he earned more than $11 million through the transport and sale of plundered Indian antiquities with his daughter and brother through a US corporation called Nimbus International.

Kapoor’s New York attorney Christopher Kane did not return a call to his cell phone on Sunday, but told the New York Post that Kapoor ““thinks of himself as a legitimate businessman, and I have no reason to think he’s not.” We’ll post any response we receive here.

As Kapoor’s legal case plays out in India, the spotlight now turns to the dozens of museums and collectors who did business with the dealer. Kapoor boasts in his bio that he has sold antiquities to a long list of leading museums, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City; Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington D.C.; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, San Francisco; The Art Institute, Chicago; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; Musée des Arts Asiatiques-Guimet, Paris; Museum fűr Indische Kunst, Berlin; The National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto; and the Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore.

Investigators have tied a Dancing Shiva at Australia’s National Gallery to Kapoor, the New York Post reported.

In a press release, American investigators asked Kapoor’s clients to check their collections and be in touch. “Some of the artifacts seized during this investigation — which are stolen — have been displayed in major international museums worldwide,” ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations team said in a press release. “Other pieces that match those listed as stolen are still openly on display in some museums. HSI will aggressively pursue the illicit pieces not yet recovered.”

The press, however, is not waiting for museums to come clean. The New York Times queried several museums last week about Kapoor objects in their collections. And on Saturday, The New York Post reported that a statue of Shiva as the Lord of Dance at the National Gallery of Australia has been tied to the investigation.

Not all museums that did business with Kapoor will be in trouble, of course. The Freer-Sackler Gallery, for example, told the New York Times that the only object they had acquired from Kapoor was a 20th century Indian necklace. The two objects in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts’s online catalog linked to Kapoor Galleries, operated by Kapoor’s brother Ramesh, are 17th century Indian paintings.

The Met’s response to the Kapoor investigation has been rather cavalier. Despite the admonition from the federal authorities, the museum will not review its Kapoor antiquities, Holzer told the Times, noting that the collection had long been posted on the Met’s website. One might think that recent history would have taught Met officials time and again that open possession of allegedly stolen property is no protection from claims both legal and moral.

The Met tried to deflect the questions from the press, telling the NY Times that most of the 81 pieces they had acquired from Kapoor were drawings from the 17th, 18th or 19th century highlighted in the 2009 Met exhibit, Living Line: Selected Indian Drawings From the Subhash Kapoor Gift. “They do not appear to be the type of items that they are worried about,” said museum spokesman Harold Holzer.

But a search of the Met’s online catalog reveals several antiquities from Kapoor that authorities likely will be interested in — none have documented ownership histories dating to 1972, when India began controlling exports of ancient art.

1st Century BC ceramic Bengal pot (2003 Gift of Subhash Kapoor)

1st Century BC Bengal Vessel (2001 Gift of Subhash Kapoor)

The God Revanta Returning from a Hunt (2003 Gift of Subhash Kapoor)

Yakshi Holding a Crowned Child (2002 Gift of Subhash Kapoor)

Curiously, the Met also has five stone sculptures from Kapoor in its study collection, here and here, for example. They resemble ancient pieces but are labeled by the museum as “20th Century.” All were acquired in 1991. Did the museum acquire these objects from Kapoor, only to discover they were modern forgeries? We’ve asked Holzer for more information.

UPDATE: Harold Holzer tells us, “The group of 20th-century forgeries was accepted as a gift along with the other Kapoor gifts for our study collection, and always identified as such.”

To be fair to the Met, their online collection is far more transparent than that of several other American museums tied to Kapoor. The Toledo Museum of Art told the NY Times that it had received a gift of 44 terracotta antiquities from Kapoor in 2007. The only object that appears in a search of the museum’s online collection is a terracotta vessel purchased in 2008. The museum published the object in 2009 in a book of the museum’s masterworks, but offers no ownership history other than saying it was created in Chandraketugarh, an archaeological site north-east of Kolkata. Where was it before Toledo? What are the ownership histories for the other 43 objects acquired from Kapoor?

We’ve asked the Toledo Museum for that information, but apparently such requests are a low priority there. More than a month ago, we requested information about objects in their collection tied to two other dealers who investigators have connected to the illicit trade — Edoardo Almagia and Gianfranco Becchina. We have still not received a response.

Several years ago, the Getty Museum took a similar stance when faced with questions about objects in their collection. Stonewalling only convinced the public of the museum’s bad faith, and fueled the zeal of investigations by foreign governments and the media. Museums would be smart to heed those lessons from the Getty case, lest they relive the consequences.

Like the Almagia investigation, the Kapoor case will be a test for how transparent American museums can be in the face of unpleasant questions about ancient art in their collections. Will they take a proactive approach to investigating their collections, as they have done with objects with unclear provenance from World War II era? Or will they stonewall and encourage others to do the investigation for them?

Hat-Tips: Several people have been covering the Kapoor case for months, and you should read their detailed coverage. The Indian press, especially the Times of India, has been covering the case for months. Damien Huffer, whose excellent blog It Surfaced Down Under tracks the illicit antiquities trade in the Southern Hemisphere, was one of the first to pick up the story, a distinction that earned him repeated legal threats. Paul Barford’s blog has also diligently tracked reports on the case, adding his salty commentary along the way. Most recently, The New York Post broke the news of the Manhattan raids last week and has followed-up with some additional scoops.

UPDATE: Attorney Rick St. Hiliare has some very interesting thoughts on what the Kapoor case reveals about antiquities smuggling networks: “Examining the import and export methods surrounding the Kapoor case not only can aid police in the United States and India in their current investigations targeting the alleged idol thief, but it can help policymakers, criminologists, and scholars think about better ways to detect, uncover, interdict, and prosecute future crimes of heritage trafficking.” Hilaire also offers excellent analysis of the bills of lading allegedly used by Kapoor’s enterprises, revealing how these objects were able to enter the U.S. under false premises. He goes on to say the case might give a boost to our WikiLoot project, which is designed to suss out these very matters. Worth reading his entire post.

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