via Nikkei Asia, 10 August 2023: Art crime investigators are closing in on stolen Thai antiquities, focusing on the smuggling of Prakhon Chai statues by Douglas Latchford, with efforts to map his activities in Thailand and build a case for the repatriation of these artifacts.
In tandem with these well-publicized efforts, however, a far-flung network of archaeologists, sleuths and government officials is trying to map out Latchford’s antics in Thailand: the country where he lived and prospered for over 60 years, and where he first encountered the Khmer art he claimed to adore at dinner parties and temple ruins.
Their goal is to set the record straight with a view to repatriating Thai artifacts — especially the hoard of enigmatic holy figures that left the kingdom in the mid-1960s, before authorities were even aware of their “startling discovery.”
As of mid-2023, none of these bronzes — faintly masculine depictions of earthly manifestations of the Buddha known as Maitreyas, Bodhisattvas and Avalokiteshvaras, and ranging in size from 25 centimeters to 1.5 meters tall — reside in Thailand’s national collection. Some languish in antique shops or online marketplaces. Others have vanished into private collections after being sold at auction, while the location of several pieces once held by Latchford’s various offshore entities is unknown.
However, most of these relics from an early, Pre-Angkorian Khmer principality or sect stand behind vitrines or on pedestals in museum galleries across America and Europe, where visitors encounter sculptures with beatific expressions and labels that bear no traces of the legal wrangling and deception surrounding them.
Source: Art crime investigators close in on stolen Thai antiquities – Nikkei Asia
