Debris covering stairs inside the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theatre following a March 16, 2022, bombing in Mariupol, Ukraine. Image Credit AP - Alexei Alexandrov

As the year comes to a close, it's time to highlight (some) of the losses, and a few of the successes from the year 2022 before we look ahead to what 2023 will bring.  

In 2022 we witnessed Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine, taking thousands of lives and creating a tragic humanitarian crisis.  One symbol of both heritage and human loss was the airstrike upon the historic Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theatre in Mariupol, a cultural landmark where hundreds of people had been sheltering as a result of the city's siege.  The theatre strike serves as painful testimony to the cost of war and the painfully permanent scale of destruction to the Ukrainian port city and ints inhabitants, as Russia's primary target in Ukraine's southeastern region of Donbas.  

Evidence collected by the AP estimates that as many as 600 civilians may have died as a result of the theatre's March 16th double airstrike, which placed this cultural institution directly in the crosshairs of the conflict.  This despite the centre's obvious civilian character and the fact that the displaced individuals who sought refuge there had plainly marked the pavement, in front of each entrance to the structure, with the word дети (children), written in Cyrillic and could be seen cooking daily meals outside.  

Five days later and just a few blocks away, Russia's bombardment also heavily damaged the Kuindzhi Art Museum, dedicated to the life and work of local realist painter Arkhip Kuindzhi.  Kuindzhi’s works were not in the museum at that time,  however, the fate of other artworks in the museum remains difficult to ascertain. 

It total UNESCO has documented 64 damaged or destroyed sites of historical and/or artistic interest in the Donetsk Region alone. 

As of December 23rd, throughout Ukraine, again according to UNESCO, the agency has verified damage at 102 religious sites, 18 museums, 81 buildings of historical and/or artistic interest, 19 monuments, and 11 libraries.

Outside Ukraine, two themes for 2022 are museums, and those in charge of them, behaving badly, and crime doesn't pay. 

On the West Coast, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles saw its hand forced by the same East Coast prosecutor, following an ongoing criminal investigation by DANY.  That investigation resulted in the California museum relinquishing, post-seizure, its looted group of life-size terracotta figures known as Orpheus and the Sirens back to Italy. 

Things were no quieter for museums over in Europe and the Middle East, where over the summer, France saw its former director of the Musée du Louvre, Jean-Luc Martinez and archaeologist-curator Jean-Francois Charnier formally charged for “complicity“ in having facilitated $50 million in acquisitions of illicit material by the Louvre Abu Dhabi, connected to investigations of suspect antiquities dealers Roben Dib (currently in French custody) and Germany-based dealer Serop Simonian.

As legal investigations usually take several years to unfold in France, Martinez and Charnier have been released under judicial supervision while a ruling of the examining chamber is expected in the new year, which some say, may see these preliminary charges dropped.

Dealers who behaved badly include Inigo Philbrick who received an 84 month prison sentence in May in connection with a multi-year scheme to defraud various collectors and business entities in order to finance his art business.

Eighty year old Raffaele Monticelli, a man considered by various Italian prosecutors to be one of the biggest middle-tier traffickers of archaeological finds in Europe, died in October.  Still active in smuggling illicit material out of Italy, he had only recently returned home to Taranto following the conclusion of a short prison sentence involving a looted helmet in circulation in the Netherlands. 

Also in the Netherlands, the Dutch appeals court confirmed the 8 year prison sentence in July for 59 year old Nils Menara, a professional burglar known on the street as 'Gauwtje' for his role in the thefts of two paintings, The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring (1884), by Vincent van Gogh, and Two Laughing Boys with a Mug of Beer by Frans Hals.  The two paintings, worth $20 million are still missing. 

In France, the 33rd criminal chamber of the Paris Judicial Tribunal held a decision in October in a case where Egypt requested the restitution of Egyptian antiquities within a criminal proceeding against Didier Wormser, who was accused of dealing stolen cultural property from the Saqqara necropolis. The director of the Star of Ishtar gallery, was given a three-year suspended prison sentence. 

In India, November saw disgraced antiques dealer Subhash Kapoor convicted of burglary and the illegal export of 19 antique idols during his first completed trial to date, held in the town of Kumbakonam in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.   With more court cases to follow, Kapoor was handed a 10-Year jail sentence for this first conviction.  The judge also imposed sentences on Kapoor's accomplices: Sanjivi Asokan, Marichamy, Packiya Kumar, Sri Ram alias Ulagu and Parthiban. 

In happier news, the last month of the 2022, marked the month where German police successfully recovered 31 of the priceless 18th-century jewellery pieces stolen from  the Royal Palace that houses the historic Green Vault (Gruenes Gewoelbe) in Dresden in 2019.   

Let's hope 2023 is a year of recoveries, more successful prosecutions and an end to conflicts. 

Arrested while on business in Cologne, Germany on October 30, 2011, after a years-long investigation code named Operation Hidden Idol that ultimately resulted in the issuance of an INTERPOL Red Notice, Subhash Kapoor, the former New York gallerist who once operated Art of the Past, has (at last) been convicted in Tamil Nadu's Kumbakonam court, in the first of several cases against him. 

Extradited from Germany to India, to face charges in a case registered in with the Udayarpalayam police station, Kapoor was handed over by the German authorities to the Idol Wing of the CID police in Chennai on July 13, 2012.  Appearing before the court the next day,  Kapoor pled not guilty to charges relating to the theft of idols from Varadaraja Perumal temple in the state's Ariyalur district.  

Afterward, he was remanded into judicial custody by the Judicial Magistrate, Jayankondam in Ariyalur, and would remain in custody for the next decade, held at Trichy Central Prison in Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu, while his case proceeded through the judicial process.  While there, other idol theft cases piled up against him; in Vikramangalam, in Veeravanallur, in Palvoor and in Virudhachalam, as well as abroad in the United States and Germany.

Yesterday, the disgraced owner of the New York gallery, Art of the Past was found guilty and sentenced by Chief Judicial Magistrate D Shanmuga Priya under:

IPC penal code section 411 (dishonestly receiving stolen property) carrying with it a three year prison sentence plus a fine. 

IPC penal code section 413 (receives or deals in property which he knows or has reason to believe to be stolen property) carrying with it a three year prison sentence plus a fine. 

IPC penal code section 120 b (criminal conspiracy) carrying with it a seven year prison sentence plus a fine. *

Sanjivi Asokan, AKA Sanjeevi Asokan, AKA Sanjeeve Asokan, received a two year sentence and fine for violation of IPC penal code section 465 (forgery), a two year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 468 (forgery, for the purpose of cheating), a two year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 471 (use of forged material) a one year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 414 (concealing or disposing of stolen property), and a seven year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 120 b (criminal conspiracy).*

Marichamy received a seven year sentence and fine for violation of IPC penal code section 457 (lurking house trespass by night, or house-breaking by night), a three year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 380 (theft of a building) and a seven year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 120 b (criminal conspiracy).*

Packiya Kumar received a two year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 465 (forgery), a two year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 468 (forgery, for the purpose of cheating), a two year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 471 (use of forged material), a three year sentence and fine IPC penal code section 411 (receiving stolen property), a three year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 414 (concealing or disposing of stolen property), and a seven year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 120 b (criminal conspiracy).*

Sri Ram AKA Ulagu received a seven year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 457 (lurking house trespass by night, or house-breaking by night), a three year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 380 (theft of a building) and a seven year sentence and fine  for IPC penal code section 120 b (criminal conspiracy).*

Parthiban received a seven year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 457 (lurking house trespass by night, or house-breaking by night), three years for IPC penal code section 380 (theft of a building) and seven years for IPC penal code section 120 b (criminal conspiracy).* 

 

We are standing in front of a single-piece sand-stone sculpture of a serenely smiling cross-legged Shiva being worshipped by the small, dumpy Skanda (Fig. 3), the one the Guimet questioned. It was probably made in the second quarter of the 10th century for Jayavarman IV's new capital at Lingapura, today's Koh Ker, and is possibly a symbol of the king and his son. 'This is spectacular. I was shown a picture of it in pieces in the mid-Eighties. The head of Shiva was off, the arms broken, Skanda's feet broken. I bought it. It arrived in three pieces. Neil Perry-Smith, one of the leading restorers of stone, metal and gold, put it together. These had been clean breaks, there's no restoration.' Indeed, the breaks are invisible. 'Go by the wall so you can see Skanda's face', he says, so that I can observe how the artist has trapped religious bliss in the face. 'I sum it up in one word: adoration.'

After boarding a plane in the UK for New York and arriving yesterday, Neil Perry-Smith surrendered voluntarily to officers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in relation to an arrest warrant issued against him through the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office for his alleged role in an international smuggling ring that trafficked in stolen works of art.  According to Manhattan Assistant District Attorneys Matthew Bogdanos and Christopher Hirsch, the well-organized smuggling network is believed to have laundered hundreds of objects out of India and other source countries onto the licit art market in an operation that is believed to have lasted for as long as thirty years. 

On 8 July 2019 arrest warrants were issued for eight defendants involved in the scheme listing a total of 213 Counts, ranging from grand larceny to criminal possession of stolen property.  The original 28 counts listed against Perry-Smith in the Manhattan complaint were:

In that previous DANY's painstakingly detailed felony arrest warrant, it is alleged that Perry-Smith was one of at least seven individuals identified through their investigation who participated in an international criminal network handling material later sold by disgraced ancient art dealer Subhash Kapoor and his former gallery Art of the Past, once located at 1242 Madison Avenue, in New York. 

As a result of this ongoing international investigation into this network's operations, officers with DHS-HSI, working with the District Attorney's Office in Manhattan conducted a total of twelve raids, resulting in the seizure of 2,622 objects valued at no less than $107,682,000 from Kapoor's gallery and numerous storage locations within the jurisdiction of the state of New York. 

The July 2019 Felony Arrest Warrant document listed 72 stolen antiquities possessed by Subhash Kapoor or members of his network from 1986 to 2016 giving an estimated value to the pieces at $79,101,000.  Of those 72, only 33 had been identified and seized by law enforcement as of the summer of 2019.   Thirty-nine other artefacts had still not been located and were estimated to be worth no less than $35,835,000.  Investigators suspect that Kapoor orchestrated to have the missing objects hidden sometime following his initial arrest in Germany in 2011 and prior to his extradition from Europe to India to answer to the charges he faces for the trafficking in ancient artefacts from his home country. 

In July 2020, the Manhattan DA’s Office also filed extradition paperwork for Subhash Kapoor, in answer to their previous arrest warrant relating to his alleged crimes carried out in the United States.  In the meanwhile, Kapoor remains in the high-security block of Tiruchirapalli Central Prison in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu pending the completion of his first trial in India. 

As it relates to Neil Perry-Smith's alleged role, little detail was mentioned in the lengthy July 2019 Felony Arrest Warrant document.  It stated simply that Subhash Kapoor shipped artefacts with forged bills of lading, first to a company in Hong Kong, while arranging for the antiquities to be restored. Those artefacts would then be shipped from Hong Kong onward to either Neil Perry-Smith in London or to Richard Salmon in New York for restoration, who would then work on the objects before forwarding the conserved artefacts on to Kapoor for sale through his New York gallery. 

But yesterday's confirmation of Perry-Smith's surrender to New York authorities elaborates further on the charges awaiting the London restorer.  In their press release,  Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance, Jr. states that "Smith" is "charged with possessing and restoring 22 stolen pieces, with an estimated value of more than $32 million" including bronze murti, normally housed in temples, representing the goddess Uma Parvati, Naga Buddha, and Shiva as Lord of Dance (Nataraja).  Laundered onto the licit art market, the bronzes Perry-Smith is alleged to have handled have an estimated market value of more than $32 million, all of which were subsequently shipped on to the conspiracy ringleader Subhash Kapoor for sale in his Manhattan gallery. 

“Without restorers to disguise stolen relics, there would be no laundered items for antiquities traffickers to sell.” -- District Attorney Vance.

But as we can read from the November 2008 quote excerpted at the top of this blog post, we know that Neil Perry-Smith also restored works of ancient art for at least one other suspect ancient art dealer also previously under indictment for the handling of looted antiquities. 

Shiva and Skanda 10th Century CE 130 cm

Taken from an interview article in Apollo Magazine, we learn that Perry-Smith restored a 10th century Cambodian  Khmer sculpture of Shiva & Skanda for the deceased British art collector and dealer Douglas A.J. Latchford.  One that, in Latchford's own words, arrived to the Thai-based collector-dealer broken in three pieces, with clean breaks.  Clean breaks are a tell-tale sign that the artwork may have been intentionally broken, with breaks such as these, along specific, easily repairable points being done to ease transport and future reassembly, when large cumbersome sculptures are removed from their find spots by looters. 

Prior to his death, Bangkok-based Latchford, had himself been indicted, in November 2019,  in the US Federal Court of the Southern District of New York for wire fraud, smuggling, conspiracy, and related charges pertaining to his own alleged trafficking in stolen and looted antiquities from India and Southeast Asia.  Once considered a pre-eminent collector and expert of Cambodian antiquities, the disgraced 88-year-old Latchford died on 2 August 2020 at his home in Bangkok before his case could be brought to trial in the United States.

Prior to Latchford's indictment, the Cambodian Ministry of Culture also identified Neil Perry-Smith's UK-based Private Limited Company Neil F. Perry as the restorer who worked with Jonathan Tucker and Antonia Tozer's London firm Asian Art Resources.  Tucker and Tozier had brokered the sale of 10 restored Angkorian-era gold jewellery pieces that, like so many others, had appeared on the ancient art market via Douglas A.J. Latchford's network, with no known legitimate provenance.  These pieces had been published in Latchford's and Emma C. Bunker's 2008 book:  Khmer Gold: Gifts for the Gods and were ultimately forfeited voluntarily to the Kingdom of Cambodia in April 2017. 

It remains to be seen what concrete evidence, if any, Neil Perry-Smith can, or will, choose to share with the authorities about the pieces he handled originating from both Douglas Latchford's and Subhash Kapoor's networks.  But with 29 counts now racked up against him, we suspect he won't feel ambivalent about giving up what he knows, trading testimony for the expectation of possible sentencing discounts. 

One week after its last restitution, on the first of April, the Consulate General of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal in New York received three more Kapoor-handled artefacts at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. Those artefacts were: 

• a 13th century CE wooden beam depicting a colored Apsara
• a 14th-15th century CE gold seated Buddha in Bhumisparsa Mudra, 
• a 15th-16th century CE seated Ganesha 

All three of these ancient objects were seized pursuant to the Manhattan DA's investigation of antiquities dealer Subhash Kapoor.  In furtherance of the occasion, Consulate General Mr. Bishnu Prasad Gautam, and District Attorney of New York County Mr. Cyrus Vance Jr. signed an agreement establishing the recovery, hand over, and repatriation of the antiquities to the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal.  

Mr. Gautam expressed his thanks to the United States Department of Homeland Security and Acting Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge Eric Silverman, Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance, Jr., and Assistant D.A. Matthew Bogdanos, Senior Trial Counsel and Chief of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit, who handled the recovery of the Nepali artefacts along with Special Agents Brenton Easter and John Paul Labbat and Investigative Analyst Apsara Iyer of the Manhattan DA's office. 

The Nepal officials honoured those responsible for the artefacts' restitution,  bestowing them with a traditional Tibetan Khata, a scarf offered as a symbol of respect and gratitude.  

To date, several investigations have tracked many false provenances provided by Subhash Kapoor. This methodology of back-tracking an artefact to its theft site and searching out the smuggling methods from the source country to Kapoor's U.S. gallery and the collectors who purchased from him has led to several recoveries.  One of those, a 10th- or 11th-century mūrti of Lakshmi-Narayana (Sanskrit: लक्ष्मी-नारायण, IAST: Lakṣmīnārāyaṇa), a manifestation of Vishnu in the Hindu religion disappeared from the Narayan Temple in the Patko Tol neighbourhood in Patan, in 1984.  That sacred object was eventually purchased six years later in March 1990 by David T. Owsley, (a client of Kapoor's) who in turn lent the object to the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA).  On 2 March 2021 officials from the Dallas FBI Field Office and the Dallas Museum of Art announced the voluntary restitution and formal transfer of that mūrti back to the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal.

On Monday, the 19th of April the Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance, Jr. announced his office's third major return in one month, this time 33 antiquities, valued at approximately $1.8 million, to the people of Afghanistan.

As can be seen, by the restitutions accomplished via Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance's team over the last month, New York continues to lead the way in the United States in making a significant impact in the identification and restitution of unprovenanced artefacts; objects which fuel a transnational trade in stolen objects and the depredation of both sacred and archaeological sites.

Image Credit: Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka to the United Nations New York

Looking back over the last month, on Thursday, March 25th the DA's office in Manhattan handed over a pair of Kandyan Period (18th Century) Sri Lankan artefacts depicting the Lord Buddha in Abhaya Mudra, which were seized pursuant to ongoing investigations into the dealings of ancient art dealer Subhash Kapoor.  These historic objects represent the first two sacred artefacts to be returned to Sri Lanka from the United States.

Abhaya in Sanskrit means fearlessness, and the abhayamudrā symbolizes protection both aptly fitting to the commitment of the New York DA's Antiquities Trafficking Unit, led by Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos, who, along with his team of analysts, collaborates with officers of the Homeland Security Investigations, all of whom strive to identify and pursue those who seek to profit from the trade in illegally exported cultural property. 

Assistant D.A. Matthew Bogdanos, Senior Trial Counsel and Chief of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit handled the Sri Lankan recovery along with Investigative Analyst Apsara Iyer and Special Agents Brenton Easter and John Paul Labbat from Homeland Security Investigations. 

Ambassador Pieris and Asst. District Attorney Col. Matthew Bogdanos exchange agreements establishing the recovery, hand over and repatriation of the antiquities.

Arrested on 30 October 2011 in Frankfurt, Germany and extradited to India in July of 2012, Subhash Kapoor is presently jailed at the Tiruchirapalli Central Prison.  In India he is on trial for smuggling 28 idols from the Sundareswarar temple, the Varadaraja Perumal temple, and from the Arulmigu Pragatheeswarar temple in Tamil Nadu.  The 71-year-old former Manhattan-based dealer will then have to answer to additional charges in the US, for his role in what prosecutors believe was a $145 million smuggling ring which prosecutors charged laundered stolen artefacts from many countries through his gallery Art of the Past.  

Law enforcement authorities in several countries believe that over a period spanning some thirty years, the disreputable dealer handled thousands of looted antiquities incentivising plunder from those within his network.  Pursuant to the USA/New York investigation, the D.A.’s Office and HSI have recovered more than 2,500 artworks, all believed to have been handled by Kapoor's web of middle-tier dealers, thieves, and smugglers between 2011 to 2020.  The bulk of these historic artefacts were pillaged from heritage sites in Afghanistan, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. 

The restitution ceremony for the Sri Lankan pieces in New York was attended by H.E. Ambassador Mohan Pieris, Permanent Representative of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, Satya Rodrigo, Deputy Permanent Representative of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka to the United Nations, Asst. District Attorney Col. Matthew Bogdanos, members of the District Attorney’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit, as well as HSI Special Agent-in-Charge Peter C. Fitzhugh, HSI Deputy Special Agent-in-Charge Erik Rosenblatt, HSI Group Supervisor Stephen Lee, and HSI Special Agents John Paul Labbat, Robert Fromkin and Igor Gamza of Homeland Security Investigations.  District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr joined the official ceremony virtually. 

Ambassador Pieris, Satya Rodrigo, DPR, Special Agent John Paul Labbat & Apsara Iyer, Antiquities Trafficking Analyst Image Credit: Permanent Mission of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka to the United Nations in New York

For Sri Lankan's thoughts, H.E. Mohan Pieris, reminded listeners that:

Cultural property is intrinsically related to the evolution of a nation’s identity. It forms a vital link to the past, wherefrom the present and future may be nurtured and enriched. It is therefore a moment of joy and cultural renewal when artefacts are recovered and returned to their rightful owners. Regrettably, however, we are dismayed to know that for every return there are thousands that are stolen, looted and trafficked through underground and illicit channels.

District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., for his part, stated that his office issued an arrest warrant for Subhash Kapoor in 2012, followed by a criminal complaint in 2019 that estimated that the “total value of stolen antiquities known to have been trafficked by Kapoor exceeds USD 145.71 million”.  Extradition paperwork has been formally filed in Manhattan in July 2020 which will ensure that Kapoor will face justice in New York as well as in India for the crimes he has been charged within New York's jurisdiction. 

On Monday, the first of April the Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance, Jr. announced a further return of artefacts, related to this ring of traffickers, this time to the people of Nepal.