Few dates have shaped museum acquisition practice as profoundly as 1970. The adoption of the UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property has come to function not only as a legal reference point but as a moral dividing line. In many institutions, an object documented outside its country of origin before 1970 encounters fewer obstacles. After 1970, the questions begin in earnest.

But what happens when the decisive date is 1969?

To finance the acquisition, the museum applied for a subsidy from the Brabant Museum Foundation.  The Foundation hesitated.  Was the purchase compatible with international agreements governing cultural property? It asked the Ethical Code Committee for Museums - formerly the Museum Code of Conduct Committee to review the case.

The Commission framed its advice around two questions: whether the museum had complied with the relevant provisions of the professional code of ethics, and whether it had exercised sufficient care in investigating the provenance of the bell. The export date of 1969 was noted as falling just before the 1970 UNESCO Convention. Although the Netherlands had not ratified the Convention at that time, the Dutch ethical code expected museums to act in accordance with its spirit.

The Commission acknowledged that the proximity of 1969 to 1970 might raise doubts. Nevertheless, it found no reason to question the stated circulation of the piece as supplied by the dealer. On that basis, it concluded that illicit trade, as defined under the code, was not at issue and that the acquisition had been carried out with appropriate care. The Brabant Museum Foundation accepted the advice and the purchase proceeded.

The advice, however, was not unanimous. One member dissented and stated that he  'would have been in favour of asking the opinion of the government of the country of origin in order to overcome the one-sidedness of the in formation available to the purchaser'.  If doubt existed regarding provenance, as he believed it did, the museum should not proceed. Even before 1970, he argued, the object should not have left Cambodia without authorisation from the relevant authorities. 

This minority view will later take on greater resonance.

In 2005, Jos van Beurden revisited the case in the academic journal Culture Without Context. His analysis focused on two aspects that had received relatively light treatment in the Commission’s advice. The first concerned the certainty of the 1969 date. The Commission had referred to the possible coincidence of 1969 and 1970 but ultimately accepted the dealer’s account. Yet in subsequent conversations the dealer reportedly described 1969 as only "most probable" rather than definitive. The boundary between acceptable and problematic rested on a date that was not firmly documented amounts to hearsay. 

The second issue concerned Cambodian law. The assertion that no permission was required for export from Cambodia to Thailand sits uneasily with information knows about Cambodia's cultural property laws.   Extensive legal protections for Cambodian cultural heritage datethrough the French colonial period, early years of independence, Khmer Rouge period, as well as modern times.

In 1863, a treaty between France and the Kingdom of Cambodia established Cambodia as a protectorate of France. In 1884, a Convention between the Kingdom of Cambodia and France gave the administrative power of the State to the French, giving the French Governor for Cambodia power over all territory.

Both a1900 decree law and a 1925 decree expressly state Cambodian cultural artefacts as being the property of the state. According to these decrees, no object could be exported without the authorisation of the Governor General, something the Dutch museum's bell doesn't have. 

Following the adoption of a new Constitution in 1993, existing laws remained in force unless expressly repealed. Legal experts, including former Director of UNESCO's Department of Cultural Heritage Lyndel Prott, supported the view that the 1925 legislation had not been abrogated by the intervening turmoil of the Khmer Rouge period.  If her interpretation was correct, the removal of the bell from Cambodia without authorisation would have been in contravention of domestic law, regardless of whether it occurred before or after 1970. The dissenting commissioner’s suggestion therefore that Cambodian authorities should have been  consulted before this object's purchase now appears less an outlier than a missed opportunity.

Despite this, the museum’s curator, Dr André Lehr (1929-2007),  defended the acquisition and the Ethical Commission had approved. What more, he asked, could reasonably be required? Implicit in that response was a narrower understanding of cultural heritage, one that placed greater weight on monumental icons than on portable objects. Yet for source countries such as Cambodia, portable antiquities are integral to the archaeological record as well as to national cultural identity. The distinction between monumental and portable heritage has little relevance in law and even less in the lived experience of loss.

But this Asten case illustrates how the year 1970 has come to function as a kind of ethical shorthand. For many institutions, “pre-1970” suggests relative safety, while “post-1970” triggers more rigorous investigation. Over time, the date has risked becoming less a reference point for inquiry than a substitute for it. If a buyer can be convinced that an object can plausibly be placed outside its country of origin before 1970, the intensity of scrutiny may diminish.

The difficulty is that plausible is not the same as proven.

A prominent collector and dealer in Southeast Asian antiquities living in Thailand, Latchford was indicted in the United States for crimes related to a many-year scheme to sell looted Cambodian antiquities on the international art market.  In September 2020, the indictment against him was dismissed following is death. 

Prior to this donation, Latchford had attempted to sell two other Dong Son bells to a private American buyer one year before the Dutch museum purchased their own from Nies.  In a 2003 email Latchford described the bells as rare and referred to a recent find in the Battambang region of northwestern Cambodia, noting that he had been able to obtain several examples. Photographs taken before cleaning of these objects showed encrustations consistent with recent excavation.

In November 2021, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced a civil forfeiture complaint seeking the return of four looted Cambodian antiquities from the Denver Art Museum,  Later that month, the museum deaccessioned the requested objects which included the Latchford-donated Dong Son bell.

While the Denver case does not establish that the bell acquired by the Dutch museum in Asten is illicit.  It does, however, reveal how narratives once accepted as adequate can later unravel. References to a “recent find,” coupled with physical evidence of fresh excavation, transformed what might once have been treated as plausible provenance into grounds for forfeiture.  The association with Latchford, who was later indicted in the United States for trafficking in Cambodian antiquities, further sharpened scrutiny.

While there are other instances of bells like this in circulation. the parallels iin both museum acquisitions are difficult to ignore. Both of these Dong Son bells linked to Battambang circulated through Thailand where Latchford operated.  Both also have limited documentation with a heavy reliance on dealer stated accounts as to their origins.  And in both cases, institutional approval was based on circumstantial information provided by the dealer proffering the work in question. 

Marcel Nies has stated in the past that he never sold any piece on behalf of Latchford directly and that he wasn’t aware of the gravity of the allegations against Latchford until he was indicted.  Despite this, seven artefacts in the Belgian dealers publications match Skanda Trust pieces which were published in Latchford’s books.  

Formed in June 2011 Skanda Trust was an offshore vehicle registered in Jersey in the Channel Islands, where antiquities Latchford owned were held in trust, sheltered from the government investigation and with his daughter Julia Latchford listed as a trustee.  Likewise a "privately owned" Dong Son bell is illustrated in: Emma C. Bunker and Douglas Latchford, Adoration and Glory, The Golden Age of Khmer Art, Chicago 2004, no. 2.

For cultural policy observers, the comparisons are instructive. It suggests that the absence of disconfirming evidence at a given moment does not resolve underlying uncertainty.  It also highlights the evolving expectations placed on museums.  What was considered reasonable due diligence in the early 2000s may no longer suffice.

Back in 2004, the dissenting member of the Dutch Ethical Commission proposed a straightforward step: consult the source country. At the time, that suggestion did not prevail.  Today, direct engagement with source-country authorities and subject matter forensic researchers is increasingly viewed as standard practice when documentation is incomplete or ambiguous.  The burden of proof is finally shifting toward demonstrating lawful export rather than relying on the absence of proof to the contrary.

This shift reflects broader changes in the governance of cultural property. Source countries have become more assertive in seeking restitution and international cooperation has intensified.  High-profile cases involving traffickers have exposed the fragility of dealer-based narratives where once vague provenance statements like: Private collection Italy, 2000 once sufficed.  As result, forward-thinking museums have responded by strengthening provenance research, enhancing transparency and, in some cases, revisiting past acquisitions.  

The bronze bell purchased in Asten in 2004 sits at the intersection of these developments.  The Ethical Commission concluded that the acquisition complied with the applicable code and that sufficient care had been taken.  Within the framework applied at the time, that conclusion may have been defensible.  Yet the minority opinion and subsequent events invite reconsideration of what sufficiency should mean.

The 1970 Convention remains a cornerstone of international cultural property policy. It provides an essential baseline.  But it was never intended to function as a rubber stamp date for hypothetical transactions that left their countries of origin in circumstances that remain unclear.  Treating 1970 as a bright line can obscure the continuing relevance of domestic export laws and the ethical imperative to seek clarity when doubt arises.

The Asten and Denver bells together illustrate a larger point.  Provenance research is not merely an administrative exercise.  It is an inquiry that unfolds, sometimes over decades, shaped by new evidence, evolving norms and changing relationships between museums, identified bad actors in the art market and source countries. 

Decisions that appeared settled in one decade now look provisional in the next.

By Lynda Albertson