I was at the Norton Simon last week. They have a few pieces
including the Harihara and several other significant pieces.
It is just not a large collection compared to the South Asian
collection there which is massive. I guess it matters what you
count as a big collection. Some beautiful and sacred pieces.
Too bad one can't offer flowers, oil, and incense in the museum.
The Americans, the French, the British, the Germans, the
Japanese should return everything. It wouldn't solve much I
imagine. Chinese, Malaysian and Thai business people would
steal it again:) I recently spoke (April 2005) at the seminar
for the King of Siam Art Exhibition which is the largest
traveling exhibition of Siamese Art in history. Very nice
show. It took 8 years to arrange (I was not part of this
phase) because the Ministry of Fine Arts in Thailand wanted to
keep most pieces in the basement of the museum. Most are never
seen and are not returned to temples either. There is internal
"stealing" as well. Sadly an old story.
I wrote a 250 page thesis when I was 19 years old on the
American involvement with the Khmer Rouge and the U.S. bombing
which was one of the main contributing factors to their
ability to rise to power and rule. Americans acting badly is
an old story. Stealing images is the least of the problem. The
sad thing is that every country that develops power needs or
think it needs to defend that power and thus in that defense
there is offense and everyone loses. An old story. I have
grown less angry in my old age or perhaps just more depressed:)
Best:)
justin
---- Original message ----
>Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2005 14:51:02 +0700
>From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@...>
>Subject: Re: [palistudy] Stolen art & inscriptions
>To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
>
>Well, as I have been encourgaged by Dr. Pind ...
>
>(1) Dr. McDaniel is correct that the Californian Museum
collection I
>was thinking of was the Norton Simon Museum --however, based
on the
>catalogue I have recently read, I would not agree with his
estimate of
>"very few Khmer ... and many fewer Lao and Thai" works in the
>collection. Their Sinhalese pieces are few and minor, but
they have
>very significant Khmer and Thai holdings, including one
pre-Angkor
>piece of a large size (it is a "Harihara" as I recall --i.e.,
>vertically bifurcated). Every pre-Angkor statue "counts" for
quite a
>lot in the history of Cambodia --many styles and periods have
just one
>or two examples still in the kingdom. The pre-Angkor
Harihara (held
>by the Norton Simon) should be returned to Cambodia --and, no
doubt,
>many of the other pieces could be traced to their "modern
origin" in
>Thailand, and returned.
>
>(2) The two biggest clearing houses for Buddhist art are
currently
>Hong Kong and Bangkok --although I am not at all sure where
>Bengaladeshi works are currently sold. In terms of legality, the
>Swiss remain an important stop-over, with most works bound
for Europe
>technically acquired in Zurich, and remaining in Swiss
territory for
>30 days (or so) to be officially deemed "imported from
Switzerland"
>[i.e., into the E.U.] with no paper-trail leading back to the
dealers
>in Asia. In any case, if you "hang out" in Zurich, you can find
>whatever you're looking for, or will be directed as to where
to look;
>the trade is fairly overt as most of it is technically legal.
>
>(3) In reply to Dr. McDaniel, the Khmer Rouge also liquidated
and sold
>entire temples --i.e., breaking off statues and selling them-- so
>their reputation as iconoclasts in this regard has to be
tempered with
>an awareness of their own mercenary inclinations. The
complicating
>factor here is the active collaboration of U.S. forces with
the Khmer
>Rouge circa 1978 - 1994 (yes, that's correct: the Americans
were on
>the same side as Pol Pot from at least the hour of the Vietnamese
>invastion until very recently --a fact too often omitted in
the BBC
>version of history). The involvement of U.S. armed forces in
>air-lifting huge quantities of Asian art has a long history
>--including the U.S. Marine Corps evacuating the collection
of the
>National Palace Museum from mainland China to Taipei on
behalf of the
>KMT. I really don't know to what extent U.S./C.I.A. hauled
Buddha
>statues along with Heroin in their nightly flights --but, if art
>smuggling was half as profitable as heroin smuggling, I would
expect
>that quite a few statues came out of Cambodia by this route.
>
>The sheer weight of Khmer art is difficult to exaggerate; many
>would-be temple looters in Cambodia today give up while
trying to load
>a statue into a truck, leaving a ruined temple, and a
half-smashed
>stone statue 30 m away from it. In any case, a team of
soldiers with
>a helicopter are at a distinct advantage over a farmer with a
truck;
>and, in all of Cambodia east of the Mekong (code-named
"freedom deal")
>the badly organized assortment American armed forces and
intelligence
>services were at their liberty to loot whatever they didn't
bomb into
>oblivion during the overt period of the war. Thereafter, the
active
>role of collaboration (on the ground) that evolved between
the U.S.
>and the Khmer Rouge (probably starting before 1978, and
continuing
>into the 1990s, as mentioned) would then have made direct
guides to
>these sites in the remote jungle even more likely.
>
>E.M.
>
>
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______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
909-827-4530
justinm@...