Grossman LLP | Sotheby's Agrees to Return Disputed Statue to Cambodia After Protracted Court Battle
This links to the home page
Art Law Blog
FILTERS
  • Sotheby's Agrees to Return Disputed Statue to Cambodia After Protracted Court Battle
    12/20/2013
    After a long court battle, an ancient Cambodian statue, consigned to Sotheby’s for sale in 2011, will be returned to that country under an agreement signed last week.  The Khmer statue, valued at over $2 million, was pulled from auction because of assertions it had been looted from the Prasat Chen temple site at Koh Ker.

    After agreeing to pull the statue from the sale, Sotheby’s rejected Cambodia’s request to return it as stolen property, contending that it viewed the statue as the lawful property of its consignor, Decia Ruspoli di Poggio Suasa.  U.S. officials entered the dispute last year after filing court papers asserting that the statue constituted stolen property under Cambodian law and had therefore entered the United States illegally.  Federal lawyers accused the auction house of trafficking in stolen property and attempting to establish a false provenance that would legitimize the statue’s presence in the auction.

    Under the settlement, Ruspoli will receive no compensation from Cambodia for the statue.  Also, the U.S. Attorney’s Office agreed to withdraw allegations that Ruspoli and Sotheby’s were aware of the statue’s disputed provenance before importing it for sale.

    The case has placed a renewed focus on Cambodian sculptures from the Koh Ker region that were possibly looted and are now in American museum collections.  Earlier this year the Metropolitan Museum of Art returned two statues after federal investigators found evidence that they had probably been illegally removed from Prasat Chen.