via Apollo, 01 May 2024: The Metropolitan Museum of Art is returning the “Golden Boy,” a gilded-bronze Khmer statue, to Thailand, sparking controversy due to its historical significance to both Thailand and Cambodia. Originating from the 11th century, this decision highlights ongoing debates about cultural heritage and ownership, intensified by past connections with notorious art dealer Douglas Latchford. Thailand’s claim is supported by recent findings in Thai territory, adding complexity to issues of provenance and cultural identity.
While attention to date has mostly centred on Latchford and Cambodia, independent research made public by Chiu and Hanwong also points to a Latchford connection in north-east Thailand – and Golden Boy is at the heart of it. The question of where Golden Boy and pieces of a similar style came from has been at issue for some time. As Chiu points out, in the 1988 book Thai and Cambodian Sculpture from the 6th to the 14th centuries, Lerner listed the provenance of a ‘large gilded deified standing king’ as ‘Thailand, Buriram Province’. But in the Met’s 1989 bulletin announcing its accession he described it as ‘Cambodian’.
Chiu’s own suspicions about Latchford’s involvement were prompted by the fact that Golden Boy came as a ‘partial gift’ from the collection of American media baron Walter Annenberg, who bought a ‘half-interest’ from Latchford’s go-to London dealer, Spink & Son. Latchford and his academic collaborator, the late Emma C. Bunker, also co-wrote three books on Khmer artefacts in which they claim that several ‘Baphuon-style’ pieces, including the ‘famous Baphuon-period gilded male figure in The Metropolitan Museum’, were wrongly identified as Cambodian.
Testimonials gathered on the ground in Thailand also resonate strongly with Latchford’s own descriptions of his collecting in the 1960s and ’70s: a period when, as he said in a 2008 interview with Apollo, he spent time exploring Thailand’s temple-city ruins and hunting down off-site sculptures: ‘I would show local governors a picture of a sculpture and ask them if they’d seen anything like it,’ he recalled.
