NEW YORK, April 4, 2012 (Courthouse News): – Federal prosecutors have filed suit to help Cambodia reclaim a 10th century sandstone statue from the Sotheby’s auction house. The Duryodhana was stolen from the Prasat Chen temple at Koh Ker in Cambodia as war raged in the neighboring Vietnam and the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975, according to the complaint.
“The Koh Ker site is of great significance from a religious, historical, and artistic perspective,” according to the complaint, which explains that the city was an ancient capital that was once home to “a vast complex of sacred monuments.” Prasat Chen, a sandstone temple at Koh Ker dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu, was looted in the 1960s or 1970s, prosecutors say. Among the temple’s lost artifacts are two large sandstone statues, the Duryopdhana and the Bhima.
“The Duryodhana is of extraordinary value as a piece of the cultural heritage of the Cambodian people,” the complaint states. “A spectacular piece and unique in so many ways, it is a triumph of creativity and innovation. It represents a unique moment in the religious and artistic history of ancient Cambodia, when the great themes of the Indian epic texts, such as the ‘The Bhagavad Gita,’ became integrated into the temple space, and were represented not simply in bas-relief, but rather in full round. Shown precisely at the moment where he leaps into the air, the Duryodhana is a testament to the skill of the ancient sculptors, who took an extraordinary risk in giving the illusion of a being in movement and suspension.”
Prosecutors say they traced the statue to Sotheby’s, which was consigned to auction the piece for a Flemish collector in 2010. The collector allegedly bought the statute from a British auction house in 1975. After Sotheby’s imported the Duryodhana into the United States, it pulled the statue from its auction on request by the Cambodian government but never released possession of it.
Sotheby’s denies the government’s allegations and says it is “disappointing” that litigation will interrupt efforts to resolve the matter “amicably.” “This sculpture, which had been in the possession of a good faith owner who obtained good title almost forty years ago, was legally imported into the United States and all relevant facts were openly declared,” the auction house said in a statement.