The 60cm-tall statue of Saint Tirumankai Alvar was acquired by the Ashmolean Museum
London:
The UK’s prestigious Oxford College has agreed to return a 500-year-old bronze idol of a saint believed to be stolen from a temple in Tamil Nadu to India.
“On 11 March 2024, the Council of the College of Oxford supported a declare from the Indian Excessive Fee for the return of a Sixteenth-century bronze sculpture of Saint Tirumankai Alvar from the Ashmolean Museum. This determination will now be submitted to the Charity Fee for approval,” stated a press release from the college’s Ashmolean Museum.
The 60cm-tall statue of Saint Tirumankai Alvar was acquired by the Ashmolean Museum on the College of Oxford from Sotheby’s public sale home in 1967 from the gathering of a collector named Dr J.R. Belmont (1886-1981).
The museum says that it was alerted to the origins of the traditional statue by an impartial researcher in November final 12 months, following which it alerted the Indian Excessive Fee.
The Indian authorities made a proper request for the bronze idol believed to be stolen from a temple in Tamil Nadu and located its option to a UK museum by public sale.
The museum, which holds a number of the world’s most well-known artwork and archaeology artefacts, says it acquired the statue in “good religion” in 1967.
There have been a number of situations of stolen Indian artefacts being restored from the UK to India, most just lately in August final 12 months when a limestone carved reduction sculpture, originating from Andhra Pradesh, and a “Navaneetha Krishna” bronze sculpture originating from seventeenth century Tamil Nadu, had been handed over to the Indian Excessive Commissioner to the UK following a joint US-UK investigation involving Scotland Yard’s Artwork and Antiques Unit.
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