NEWS: The Manhattan DA has issued an arrest warrant for a California antiquities collector, Aaron Mendelsohn, alleging he knowing bought a bronze sculpture looted from Bubon, Turkiye and conspired with prominent experts to disguise its illicit history. A thread... www.nytimes.com/2025/09/09/a...

A Still Life in Buenos Aires: Misattribution, Mystery, and (more) Nazi-Era Shadows. art-crime.blogspot.com/2025/09/once...

BBC Radio 4 broadcast a segment on looting of Cambodian artefacts and efforts to recover them from foreign collections. Hear from former looter "Blue Tiger" as well as restitution team members Brad Gordon and Thida Long. Starts around 19:20: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Museums are hilarious "Yes, we stole it, why don't YOU reflect on that?"

An amazing story.

61 years ago today and Italy is still waiting. art-crime.blogspot.com/2025/08/61-y...

"What isn't at the V&A?" — new from me in @artreview.bsky.social on enduring colonialism, art-washing working class heritage, and a museum without labels artreview.com/what-isnt-at...

✒️🏺new special thematic issue - Caring for Culture. #openaccess #archaeology #heritage www.cambridge.org/core/journal... 🏺👏

Gift NYT article on how museums are lobbying against proposed restitution law barring technical time limit defenses which museums have been using to dismiss claims HEAR act #law #artlaw #Holocaust www.nytimes.com/2025/07/31/a...

The Priprahwa Buddhist gem relics will return to India, via sale to an Indian company. "Should ex-colonised countries be required to purchase their own heritage taken from them in colonial contexts? Should Buddha relics be bought at all?" -Prof Ashley Thompson www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08...

Sacred Buddha Gems Pulled From Sotheby’s Sale Are Returned to India news.artnet.com/art-world/bu...

The US is now formally implementing import restrictions on Indian archaeological and ethnological materials, enforcing the US-India Cultural Property Agreement signed in 2024.

Project Brazen, producer of the “Dynamite Doug” podcast, has published 3 letters illustrating some of the historic collaboration between London dealer Spink & Son and indicted trafficker Douglas Latchford. There are many interesting details. Here are a few. (Thread) shorturl.at/jabhT

Tomorrow, 28 June 2025, marks the official implementation date of Regulation (EU) 2019/880 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 April 2019 on the introduction and the import of cultural goods. art-crime.blogspot.com/2025/06/regu...

Many art dealers pressed the US authorities to return to business as usual as soon as WWII ended, regardless of the millions of looted objects scattered about war-torn Europe. plundered-art.blogspot.com/2025/06/fren...

At the same time, the Met describes itself as taking a more “proactive” approach to repatriation. Yet even a simple search for “Kathmandu” in its collection brings up objects linked to Doris Wiener, an antiquities dealer long associated with trafficking networks. www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

Thailand to seek return of additional 16 artefacts from US museums www.nationthailand.com/life/art-cul...

Crime Pays in Versailles: Bill Pallot’s Fake-Chair Scandal and Its Broader Lessons. art-crime.blogspot.com/2025/06/crim...

Four 7-9th-century Buddhist statues of the looted 'Prakhon Chai hoard' will soon be returned from San Francisco's Asian Art Museum to Thailand www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/5/...

A Slap on the Amphora: After 17 years of court filings, only mild sentences in Greece’s landmark antiquities trafficking case. art-crime.blogspot.com/2025/05/a-sl...

A pastel by Edouard Vuillard plundered in France in 1943 was withdrawn from a Christie's sale on 13 May 2025. plundered-art.blogspot.com/2025/05/enfa...

"This is not the first time that the Indian Government has fought for the return of relics from the Buddhist stupas of India." timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/toi-ed...

Great to see this out - in this article I elaborate on passive and active academic facilitation of #illicittrade in cultural objects, taking Mary Slusser and Emma Bunker as examples #returnthegods @saa-aap.bsky.social‬ @thesccjr.bsky.social @uofgsps.bsky.social www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

‘I was speculating: if China really wanted something back, how would that conversation go?’ Joel Tan explains why he wrote a play about the British Museum returning a fictional statue in ‘Scenes from a Repatriation’ buff.ly/DggGOYf

Once again, like with Camorra clansman Raffaele Imperiale, we see artwork from a museum theft used as collateral by a high ranking member of a transnational organised crime group involved in cocaine trafficking and violent crimes.

Gather round for an example of a provenance by omission, manufactured through the strategic cutting away of red flags. In 2008, this lovely Greek terracotta maiden was offered to the public, described as "ex-American private collection, collected in 1980's-1990's." Then...

New episode featuring superstar Heba Abd el Gawad #peoplingthepast #egyptology #colonialism🔥🔥🔥👇👇👇

Sotheby's now-postponed auction of the Buddha's gem relics "brings into focus global debates about colonial legacies and the art market, as well as cultural identity, exchange and heritage. What might happen now?" -Ashley Thompson & Conan Cheong www.sundaytimes.lk/250511/plus/...

In August 2024, the Allentown Art Museum settled a case involving a Cranach sold under duress in 1938 by its Jewish owners. The US interpretation of the sale led to a settlement, while the French returned another painting from the same sale to the heirs. plundered-art.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-...

Another failure of TEFAF screening. Kudos to @sauterne.bsky.social and Vijay Kumar for their vigilance. The idol was scheduled for auction at TEFAF Maastricht in March. It has since been nixed and secured for return to India. timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai...

the tide is turning on the question of selling ancestral remains—now we need a change in the law in the UK and elsewhere, new ethical codes adopted by auction houses internationally, and a new collective approach to restitution and restoring dignity

I saw someone praying to and circumambulating them when I went in March!

Hong Kong Free Press reports Sotheby's comments on its postponement of today's planned auction of Buddha relics in Hong Kong hongkongfp.com/2025/05/07/s...

“[E]ven in a fully capitalist society, there are boundaries defining what can and cannot be sold or auctioned" -Phra Paisal Visalo, abbot of Wat Pasukato, Thailand. This article quotes several Buddhist leaders on the (now postponed) sale of Buddha relics by Sotheby's cambodianess.com/article/the-...

Great news: Sotheby's has postponed the auction of the Buddha relics from Piprahwa stupa in India following international condemnation including a threat of legal of action from India www.sothebys.com/en/piprahwa-...

New #PeoplingPodcast alert! Today, we are joined by @robertamazza.bsky.social to discuss the antiquities trade in both the past and the present, the ethics behind papyrology, and the illicit papyrus trade in academia. Listen in to “Fragments and Falsehoods” here: peoplingthepast.com/2025/05/06/p...

Which "Buddhist institutions"? That's suuuper vague.

If you're in Glasgow next week, please pop by to hear from our valued Universitas Gadjah Mada visitors! #epistemicinjustice #Indonesia #IPDF #UGM @uofgsps.bsky.social @thesccjr.bsky.social @uofgsociology.bsky.social @uofgartshums.bsky.social

India tries to halt auction of Piprahwa gems found with Buddha’s remains, which it says “constitute inalienable religious and cultural heritage of India and the global Buddhist community.” www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...

This statue is back on view at the Cleveland Museum of Art for a few months before its July repatriation to Turkiye. Sadly, the CMA is STILL trying to spin the story, refusing to admit they knew all along ... (1/12) hyperallergic.com/1006670/a-lo...

Outrage as Buddhist relics go under the hammer in Hong Kong. "The Dhamma teaches us not to take others' possessions. Auctioning these objects to the highest bidder is inconsistent with their spiritual value." www.sundaytimes.lk/250504/news/...

Jewels linked to Buddha remains go to auction, sparking ethical debate www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Auction by Sotheby's of ancient Indian gems ‘imbued with presence of Buddha’ condemned www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...

The Asian Art Museum has completed the process of deaccessioning four bronze Buddhist statues in preparation for their return to Thailand, from which they had been looted in the 1960s. www.matichon.co.th/local/arts-c...

📰Fresh off the press, an Op Ed by @natesibley.bsky.social examines why cartels and terrorists love the American art market. thehill.com/opinion/fina...

For anyone interested in this, I finally got an estimate. Bids start at around HK 10 million and they’re expected to sell for HK 100 million (about $13 million US).

Sotheby's is about to auction off remains of the Buddha taken by colonial officials from India in 1898. "For the Buddhists who deposited them-as for Buddhists today-the gems, & his bone & ash, all belong to the Buddha & shouldn’t just be sold to the highest bidder." religionnews.com/2025/04/22/a...

More often than not, Nazi plunderers mistakenly assigned confiscated objects to the wrong victimized owner. These mistakes which are nigh impossible to spot reverberate into our present era. When we do identify them, we need to fix them. plundered-art.blogspot.com/2025/04/a-ch...