A religious relic from the David Owsley Museum of Art was confirmed to have been stolen from a temple in India after a five-month investigation, according to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) press release.
After five months of investigation, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) has taken custody of the artifact and is working with Ball State to return it to the temple in Southern India from which it was stolen.
The relic is a 1,000-year-old statue of the Festival Bronze of Shiva and Parvati.
“The theft, trafficking and/or destruction of cultural artifacts is one of the oldest and most sinister forms of transnational crime. To profit from the sale of someone else’s ancient religious relic which is priceless to the people who worship it, is egregious and disrespectful to all faiths,” said Glenn Sorge, acting special agent in charge for HSI New York.
Sorge said HSI's long-term goal is to reduce the incentive for activities like this.
“Our partnerships with institutions like Ball State University are instrumental to this effort," Sorge said. "We hope that other collectors, institutions and museums will see this surrender as a successful example of a way to move forward when dealing with artifacts that might be of concern.”
The statue will be shipped to New York and may serve as evidence in Operation Hidden Items, and will ideally be forfeited and sent back to India, along with found artifacts.
The artifact dealer under question is Subhash Kapoor, a former New York-based art dealer who is in custody in India awaiting trial for looting tens of millions of dollars of artifacts.
“The David Owsley Museum of Art, as with the Toledo Museum of Art and several other major collecting institutions, cooperated fully with the U.S. and Indian governments in the investigation of works sold by the dealer Subhash Kapoor,” said Robert G. La France, director of the David Owsley Museum of Art. "The Festival Bronze of Shiva and Parvati was the only work of art in this museum’s collection purchased from Kapoor. Homeland Security Investigations has presented convincing evidence that the work was stolen and its documentation falsified.”
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