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UPDATED > Singapore Sling: The Asian Civilizations Museum Paid Kapoor More...
UPDATE: In response to this report, the Asian Civilizations Museum confirmed our accounting and released information on a few objects we missed, including six additional paintings purchased for...
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SCOOP: Bowers Museum will return 500+ Thai antiquities seized during 2008 raids
On the front page of this month’s The Art Newspaper I report that the Bowers Museum of Art has agreed to return 542 ancient vases, bowls and other artifacts to Thailand. The objects were allegedly...
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Boston MFA’s Provenance Research Reveals The Illicit Trade In African...
Last month the Boston Museum of Fine Arts voluntarily returned to Nigeria eight works of art — ranging from a terra-cotta Nok head dating to 500 B.C. to a wooden Kalabari memorial screen from the late...
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Twenty Percent: ISIS “Khums” Tax on Archaeological Loot Fuels the Conflicts...
Early Sunday morning, a Twitter account associated with ISIS posted a horrifying photo gallery documenting the group’s destruction of religious sites. The images show the demolition of several shrines...
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Shiva Goes Home: Australia’s Prime Minister Returns Looted Kapoor Idols to India
On Friday, Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott will return two looted idols seized from Australian museums during a meeting with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi in New Delhi. Abbott will...
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Hecht’s Footprints: Haverford College Opens Up About Source of Their Greek Vases
American antiquities dealer Robert Hecht died in February 2012 after six decades at the top of the trade in recently looted Classical antiquities. I’ve recently learned that some of that infamous...
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Danti’s Inference: The Known Unknowns Of ISIS and Antiquities Looting
Over the last month, a new meme has spread like a sandstorm across the internet: Looting of antiquities, we’re told, has become “the second largest source of revenue” for the hated terror group ISIS....
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The Kushan Buddhas: Nancy Wiener, Douglas Latchford and New Questions about...
In 2005, Canada’s Royal Ontario Museum was offered a rare sculpture of a Seated Buddha carved from red sandstone in the second century. It was from India’s ancient city of Mathura, the second capital...
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Ball State’s Kapoor Return Reveals New False Provenance
On Monday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents recovered a Chola period bronze from Ball State University’s Owsley Museum, marking yet another trail in the path of stolen Indian artifacts sold...
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Operation Antiquity: Prison for Antiquities Dealer Behind Looting and Tax...
Federal agents descend upon the Bowers Museum during an early morning raid in Santa Ana Thursday, Jan. 24, 2008. UPDATE: My article on the case has been posted at The Art Newspaper here. UPDATE: The...
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The Crennan Report: The NGA’s Ex Post Facto Due Diligence Finds 22...
In an unprecedented review of its Asian art collection, the National Gallery of Australia has determined that 22 of the 36 objects examined to date have “insufficient or questionable provenance...
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Busted: Asia Week Raids Reveal Scope of Illicit Trade in Asian Art
Federal agents raided the Nancy Wiener Gallery on Thursday, the latest move in an aggressive crack down on the trade in ancient Asian art that has targeted several leading dealers and auction houses...
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Asia Week Raids: New Details on the Christie’s Seizures
This week, a series of five federal raids during New York’s Asia week led to the seizure of at least eight looted antiquities and the arrest of at least one dealer. This is the first of several posts...
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UPDATED > Asia Week Arrest: Japanese Dealer Charged With Selling Stolen Art
Japanese antiquities dealer Tatsuzo Kaku was arrested at Asia Week and charged on March 14th with criminal possession of a looted 2nd Century Buddhapada sculpture valued at more than $1 million, court...
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The Lessons of Palmyra: Iconoclasm in the era of Clickbait
Last December I was invited to Harvard to participate in a round table on ISIS and iconoclasm. The event, organized by archaeologist Bastien Varoutsikos and sponsored by Harvard’s Standing Committee on...
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The Missing Link: Subhash Kapoor’s Suppliers in India Are (Finally) Getting...
In a series of aggressive police raids over the past month, Indian authorities have disrupted a large network of alleged thieves and smugglers that for decades has plundered ancient temples from...
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The End of the Beginning: NGA Returns Kushan Buddha and Two Kapoor Objects
On Monday, the National Gallery of Australia returned three more antiquities to India in light of evidence – much of it first made public here – that they had been stolen from temples or...
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UPDATED > Inside the ISIS Looting Operation: U.S. Lawsuit Reveals Terror...
A civil lawsuit filed today by the U.S. government sheds startling new light on the brutality of the Syrian looting operations of the Islamic State. The lawsuit seeks the forfeiture of four looted...
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UPDATED > Manhattan Dealer Nancy Wiener Arrested: Criminal Complaint Alleges...
Antiquities dealer Nancy Wiener was arrested Wednesday morning in Manhattan and charged with conspiring with international smuggling networks to buy, smuggle, launder and sell millions of dollars worth...
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UPDATED > Help Wanted: We’re Tracking Down Objects Sold By Nancy and Doris...
In the wake of the arrest of the Manhattan antiquities dealer Nancy Wiener, we’re teaming up with our friends at the India Pride Project to track down the ancient objects she and her mother Doris...
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