He was described as “one of the world’s most prolific smugglers”. In total, more than 77 antiquities ended up in the catalogs of the Metropolitan Museum of Art because of Subhash Kappor, now imprisoned in India. As compensation, the New York museum returned 16 stolen works, including a sculpture of a celestial dancer dating from the 11th century, reports The Indian Express , relayed by Courrier International .
After a long investigation, The Indian Express revealed that the most notable stolen work, a sculpture of a dancer, had indeed been stolen by the Indian smuggler. According to the daily, the work originated in the state of Madhya Pradesh, in central India. Its value is now estimated at more than a million dollars.
Following this restitution, the museum announced in a press release that it would carry out a “thorough examination of its collection” and would form a committee to “review its process of acquiring works and artefacts”.
A previous investigation by The Indian Express already revealed that an Asia collection at the New York museum had at least 94 artifacts from Jammu and Kashmir, a region in northern India. The various objects – sculptures, paintings, manuscripts and carpets – were all exhibited without any indication of their provenance, date of acquisition or authority responsible for their transfer.
If the smuggler was sentenced to ten years in prison in his country, the story of these stolen objects should not end there. Many other stolen objects remain to be discovered. Specialists estimate that in total, Subhash Kapoor would have sold works of art for millions of dollars for more than thirty years. There are still “hundreds, if not thousands, of ancient objects sold by Kappor to prestigious collections around the world”, comments S. Vijay Kumar, the founder of the India Pride Project, interviewed by the Indian daily The Hindu. .
According to Unesco, 50,000 art objects stolen from Indian temples were currently in museums in the West or in private collections.
