Allegedly stolen Nepalese artefact acquired properly: S'pore museum

A Nepalese artefact at the Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM) that is alleged to have been stolen was acquired through the National Heritage Board's established procedures, a museum spokesman said.

Responding to queries from The Straits Times, he said yesterday that the museum was aware of media reports claiming that the religious artwork depicting the Hindu deity Shiva had been looted.

The ACM did not reply to questions on how the artwork had been obtained or at what cost.

He said: "The object in the reports is a copper Cover Of A Linga, which was acquired by ACM in 2015 in accordance with the National Heritage Board's established procedures on acquisition.

"These procedures include evaluation by ACM's acquisition committee made up of external experts, as well as rigorous provenance checks carried out at the time of purchase, which are also benchmarked against international practices and regularly reviewed."

According to a caption below the exhibit in the ACM's Ancient Religions gallery, the 386-year-old cover would have been placed over a plain stone linga, the phallic and cosmic pillar symbol of Shiva.

The ACM noted that the object is not listed in the Art Loss Register, which is the world's largest private database on stolen art. Annually, the register checks the status of more than 400,000 items on the market for museums, auction houses, dealers and enforcement agencies.

Allegations that the artwork had been stolen in 1999 and traced to the ACM first surfaced on Facebook page Lost Arts of Nepal on Sunday, according to Nepalese media, including The Kathmandu Post.

The Facebook page describes itself as an initiative to make Nepalese citizens aware of their lost artistic heritage now available in museums and private collections abroad.

In a Facebook post on Sunday, it claimed that the artefact in the museum is one of four images of gods stolen from Pharping, a town on the edge of Kathmandu in Nepal.

The post claimed that the missing four artefacts had been used in religious rites involving seven deities before they were stolen, and the ritual has since been conducted using replicas.

This is not the first time the ACM has been embroiled in controversy surrounding the origins of its artefacts.

In 2015, the museum returned an 11th-century bronze sculpture depicting the Hindu goddess Uma Parameshwari, dating back to the Chola dynasty, to the Indian authorities after a series of discussions between the National Heritage Board and the Archaeological Survey of India.

The sculpture of the goddess was said to have been smuggled into the United States, and in February 2007, sold to the Singapore museum for US$650,000 and shipped here.

ST has contacted the Nepalese authorities for further comment.