Looted during the civil war, 77 Khmer ornaments returned to Cambodia

Back to basics for 77 jewels of the Khmer empire.

The family of a deceased British art dealer suspected of trafficking in works of art has returned dozens of stolen pieces of Khmer art jewelery to Cambodia, the South Asian country's culture ministry announced on Monday. South East.

reacted Phoeurng Sackona, the Minister of Culture, quoted in the press release.

This collection of jewelry in gold and other precious metals - crowns, necklaces, bracelets, earrings or amulets - dates from the pre-Angkorian and Angkorian eras, named after the empire that dominated much of the Indochinese peninsula between the 9th and 14th centuries.

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The restitution agreement between the Cambodian authorities and the family of Douglas Latchford, a British dealer charged by American justice with trafficking in works of art before his death in 2020 - without trial -, was reached in September 2020. His Khmer collection arrived in the kingdom last Friday.

According to the Cambodian authorities, most of the returned objects have never been displayed to the general public.

Four ornaments from the Latchford collection returned to Cambodia.

A total of 77 pieces of silverware held by the British art dealer convicted of art trafficking were returned this month by his family to the Cambodian authorities.

Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts of Cambodia

Cambodia is demanding the return of heritage stolen during the 1970s, marked by civil war and the despotic power of the Khmer Rouge.

Five Khmer works of art, including a stone statue of the Hindu god Shiva, owned by the Latchford family, were returned in 2021.

American justice returned, last August, to Cambodia 30 stolen works which had been the subject of international traffic to the United States - among which statues of Hindu and Buddhist deities, spanning the Age Bronze in the twelfth century.

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