What fuels the illicit trade in Indian antiquities? As we have seen in the previous columns, it’s a demand-driven trade and today we are going to have a closer look at another important factor that is impoverishing source nations of their cultural heritage—unregulated museum purchases.
Traditionally you would expect museums, that too public-funded national museums, to have stringent policies for acquisitions and purchases as compared to a buccaneering private collector—as they have an obligation to the taxpayer and donors to ensure their monies are spent properly.
But the case of the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) is a shocker. The museum has often ignored very clear red flags and done little to no due diligence when buying cultural treasures. A few token photo-op restitutions cannot undo the damage on the ground.
The cases of the stolen “Dancing Shiva” aka the Sripuranthan Nataraja and the Vriddhachalam Ardhanarishwara—purchases of the NGA and the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) totalling $5 million—both stolen purchases since restituted to India—should have been wake-up calls for Australian museums. But were they?
The Australian government on its part has released amongst others a “Best Practice Guide to Collecting Cultural Material” in 2014. The NGA released its own “Due Diligence report” in 2014 and then sought out an independent review of its Asian art provenance project in 2015, by the Honourable Susan Crennan AC, former Justice of the High Court of Australia.
However, despite all the above, in the seven years since the scandal first broke, Australian museums including the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) have been continually exposed and the main reasons for this are the failure to address the foundational problems of optical due diligence and more importantly, the lack of accountability.
What exactly are provenance and due diligence? The Australian Best Practice Guide says: “Provenance includes the full history and chain of ownership of an object from the time of its discovery or creation to the present day, through which authenticity and legal title are determined”; “Due diligence requires that every endeavour is made to verify the accuracy of information before deciding a course of action, particularly in identifying the source and history of cultural material considered for acquisition.
Due diligence may include verifying the authenticity of an object, legal title, condition, value for money, integrity of its history, source and vendor.” The Crennan report only covers 36 objects in the collection acquired by the NGA over the period 1968 to 2013 and was tabled just after the return of the Sripuranthan Nataraja and Vriddhachalam Ardhanarishwara.
It opens with: “As will emerge, none of the other objects purchased by the NGA from (the arrested Subhash Kapoor’s gallery) Art of the Past are in exactly the same position as the Shiva but, where some common circumstances exist, concerns over provenance have been heightened and given priority.” Since the above report was published in 2015, Australia has restituted to India six more artefacts totalling about $3 million—the Vriddhachlam Pratyangira, Kushan Buddha, two door guardians, Nagaraja, Worshippers of Buddha (all from the NGA); and the AGSA returned the Kulasekaram Nataraja.
Why would that happen—did new evidence come up? Yes and no: The presence of robber-offering photos for many of the objects were exposed way back in 2013 but new evidence came up—some in-situ photographs of the idols were found along with more incriminating documents, all solidifying the case of the fake provenances.
But the case in point is that even a cursory glance at the provenance files of the idols throws up clear red flags. Most of the NGA purchases from Kapoor’s Art of the Past—including the Sripuranthan Nataraja and Vriddhachalam Ardhanarishwara that were returned—have the following names in the forged ownership chain details.
Abdullah Mehgoob and wife Raj Mehgoob: Abdullah apparently had worked for the UN, as a former member of the Sudanese diplomatic service. Their relation to Selina Mohamed is not known but the Vriddhachlam Pratyangira was shown as gifted to her by Abdullah. The second family group is Rajpathi Singh Mohamed, wife Insaan Mohamed and daughter Selina. Selina was Kapoor’s girlfriend; she was charged in New York with four counts of possession of stolen property and one count of conspiracy. Particulars alleged against her included preparation of false provenance documents.
After being charged in December 2013, Selina subsequently reached a plea agreement to plead guilty to a misdemeanour charge of conspiracy in the fifth degree. In March 2015, she was given a one-year conditional release. Another is Dalhousie enterprises connected to the ‘Worshippers of Buddha’ icon (from Chandavaram). Dalhousie enterprises is an art dealership run by Paramspry Ponnusamy, who was, for 10 years, an associate and girlfriend of Subhash Kapoor and was involved in a legal dispute with him in 2010.
Six of the eight restitutions of stolen sculptures from the NGA are linked to the above names. Nevertheless, a further five idols linked to them are still held by the NGA despite overwhelming and damning evidence that the provenances are glaringly fake! This, even though the persons named have been charged in US courts for fabricating false provenances. The NGA also paid the highest prices for any of the Kapoor objects. So, were the museum staff fooled by a neat operator or is there a fundamental problem? The evidence on hand shows that other museums were more diligent.
As we shall see in the next article with specific examples, the NGA shockingly paid multiple times over the market price for many of its purchases. These have invariably led to inflating prices of unprovenanced and stolen antiquities leading to a spurt in robbing, stealing and plunder back home in ‘source countries’ like India.
(The India Pride Project’s #BringOurGodsHome initiative has helped bring many stolen idols back to our country)
Chain of ownership inferred at time of purchase
Chain of ownership inferred at time of purchase
S Vijay Kumar (vj.episteme@gmail.com)
Co-Founder, India Pride Project and Author of The Idol Thief