AUSTRALIA, March 24, 2014(by Michaela Boland, The Australian): The National Gallery of Australia’s $5.1 million Shiva is one step closer to going home. The Indian government has made a formal request for the NGA to return the 900-year-old bronze figure of the Hindu deity, which has been on display in its first floor gallery since 2008. Indian police claim the 1m-high statue was looted in 2006 from a Sivan temple in Sripuranthan, Tamil Nadu.
The Attorney-General’s Department received the letter on Friday, a day after NGA director Ron Radford signalled he would leave the gallery in September at the end of his contract.
The Attorney-General, George Brandis, has not responded to the request but Mr. Radford said this month he would return the statue only if a court in India or the US asked the gallery to do so. The Attorney-General’s office has supplied The Australian with a report prepared by the gallery on the items it bought from Subhash Kapoor, the disgraced Indian art dealer on trial in India and wanted in the US, where authorities have described him as one of the biggest commodities smugglers in the world.
The report was prepared by the chairman of the NGA, Melbourne QC Allan Myers, after Mr Radford set up an investigating panel of gallery insider. The panel’s members never met to discuss the growing crisis. The Myers report reveals many problems with the due diligence undertaken by Mr. Radford and his Asian Art curator Robyn Maxwell.
A TV show will be shown March 24 and 25 in Australia on the subject: http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2014/03/24/3968642.htm