Thailand welcomes the return of trafficked antiquities from New York’s Metropolitan Museum

BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand’s National Museum hosted a welcome-home ceremony Tuesday for two ancient statues that were illegally trafficked from Thailand by a British collector of antiquities and were returned from the collection of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The objects — a tall bronze figure called the “Standing Shiva” or the “Golden Boy” and a smaller sculpture called “Kneeling Female” — are thought to be around 1,000 years old.

This most recent repatriation of artwork comes as many museums in the U.S. and Europe reckon with collections that contain objects looted from Asia, Africa and other places during centuries of colonialism or in times of upheaval.

The Metropolitan Museum had announced last December that it would return more than a dozen artifacts to Thailand and Cambodia after they were linked to the late Douglas Latchford, an art dealer and collector accused of running a huge antiquities trafficking network out of Southeast Asia.

He was indicted in the United States in 2019 for allegedly orchestrating a long-running scheme to sell looted Cambodian antiquities on the international art market. Latchford, who died the following year, had denied any involvement in smuggling.

Speaking at Tuesday’s ceremony, the Metropolitan’s curator of Asian and Southeast Asian art, John Guy, called the returned works “unrivalled masterpieces“ of their period and said the handover was “a very meaningful moment to recognize the importance of the art of Thailand in world culture.”

“The Met initiated the return of these two objects after reviewing information and established that the works rightly belonged to the Kingdom of Thailand.” he said.

“This return followed the launch of the Metropolitan’s Cultural Property Initiative