Metropolitan Museum of Art Initiates Return of Two Artifacts to Nepal

The Metropolitan Museum of Art recently announced it had initiated the return of two artifacts from Nepal, a stone sculpture and a delicately carved temple strut.

The 13th-century wooden temple strut was purchased by the museum in 1988, and the 11th-century stone image Vishnu flanked by Lakshmi and Garuda, gifted to the Met in 1995.

The second item was donated nearly thirty years ago from the personal collection of Steven Kossak, a former curator in the Met’s Asian art department. It was featured prominently in an ARTnews report about the museum’s repatriation issues:

“Deity sculptures are considered living gods in Nepal. The Vishnu relic is a highly symbolic rendition of the god surrounded by a pearl-and-flame aureole with his consort Lakshmi on one side and the eagle Garuda on the other. Standing on a raised platform with lotus decorations, Vishnu is depicted in his four-armed form with raised hands holding weapons: a discus and a club.”

The stone sculpture was still on display in early January, but its online catalogue entry has since been deleted.

An agreement on the return of the two items was signed by the Met director Max Hollein and the acting consul general of Nepal, Bishnu Prasad Gautam.

“We appreciate the Museum’s ongoing dedication and commitment to working for the preservation and promotion of world cultural heritage,” Gautam said in a statement. “The Consulate looks forward to working closely with the Museum to preserve and promote art and culture in the future, as these collaborative efforts truly contribute to the preservation of cultural heritage and further strengthen the long-standing ties between the peoples of Nepal and the United States of America.”

A press release on October 3 stated the return was prompted by “new information from colleagues in Nepal” and the museum is arranging transportation of the objects.

ARTnews previously reported that Nepalese officials traveled to New York in October for a private meeting with Met officials, including the Asian art department chairman Maxwell K. Hearn, apparently to discuss the Vishnu relic.

Repatriations of items from the Met’s collection have risen in frequency due to increased scrutiny on the provenance, or the history of ownership.

In the past year alone, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has seized dozens of allegedly looted items, many of them connected to Met trustee Shelby White and convicted art dealer Robin Symes, estimated to be worth of tens of millions of dollars. The items have been repatriated back to countries including Greece, Turkey, Italy, Egypt, Cambodia, and Nigeria.

The Met is also returning items based on additional provenance research from its own scholars. The institution recently transferred ownership of two stone sculptures dating to the third millennium BCE back to Yemen after determining their location of origin to be the city of Ma’rib.