In a major first, Oxford University’s Ashmolean Museum has returned a 16th-century bronze statue to India on its journey back to the temple in Tamil Nadu where it belongs.
The museum acquired the holy icon of Saint Thirumankkai Alvar at a Sotheby’s auction in 1967 before being alerted to its origins in the Shri Sundararaja Perumal temple in Thadikumbu by an independent researcher in November 2019.
This led to the museum asking the High Commission of India in London to officially confirm its provenance, with the process concluding at an official handover ceremony at India House on Tuesday evening.
Dr Xa Sturges, director of Britain’s first public museum dating back to the 17th century, said: “This is a really important moment for the Ashmolean Museum. It was over five years ago that we first became aware of evidence that this bronze had been depicted at the temple in Tamil Nadu. At that point it became clear that there was no legitimate way by which it could leave India.” “The Indian High Commission about the possibility of returning this piece to India,” he said.
Believed to have been stolen from the temple and replaced with a modern replica, the bronze statue is now set for its return journey after experts from the museum traveled to India to establish roots with the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Tamil Nadu government officials and temple authorities.
“The process of sourcing an artefact went back to where it came from, in this case a deity in the Soundararaja Perumal temple in Tamil Nadu, and we had to be able to prove its provenance without delving into how it got out of India,” said Vikram Doraiswami, Indian High Commissioner to the UK.
Really, credit to the Ashmolean Museum who took this seriously and worked with us so patiently.
This is the first time I understand that they actually returned anything. It is a major step for the museum to realize that although it is a repository of the world’s artistic heritage, integrity requires access to the items in the right way.
I’m really excited that this statue is on its way home to Tamil Nadu, the part of India where my father is from. “Particularly important is the difference between simply viewing it as a beautiful work of art, which it is, but also as a sacred object of a living temple,” said Baroness Thangam Debonaire, a cultural strategist in the House of Lords.
The handover ceremony of the ancient Indian relics also included four other iconic artifacts stolen and smuggled out of the country and restored with the assistance of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) – the investigative arm of the US Department of Homeland Security, the Arts and Antiques Unit of the Metropolitan Police in London, and the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) of India.
