The Ashmolean Museum at Oxford University announced that the university has consented to return a 500-year-old bronze sculpture of a Hindu poet and saint to India.
Four years ago, the Indian High Commission in the United Kingdom filed a claim for the bronze statue of Tirumankai Alvar, which was purportedly taken from a shrine.
Worshippers have plenty to rejoice over, according to Vijay Kumar, co-founder of India Pride Project, which aims to recover stolen religious artefacts.
“We saw COVID delays and procedural drama between British and Indian authorities on what should have been an open and shut case,” Kumar told the Times of India on Sunday. ”But we have been voicing our opinions on social media and we are almost there.”
The intended repatriation coincides with a campaign for rare antiques plundered or obtained via dubious means during the height of the British Empire by Indigenous peoples in Australia and foreign governments including Nigeria, Egypt, and Greece.
Nearly 100 Benin bronzes were looted in 1897 when British soldiers raided and took control of Benin City as Britain increased its political and commercial power in West Africa. Oxford decided two years ago to give the bronzes back to the Nigerian government.
The Charity Commission, an English and Welsh regulatory authority that determines whether returning art compromises an organization’s charitable goal, has put a hold on the return of those artefacts. The commission’s consent is also required for the Indian bronze.
The bronze was discovered in a temple in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu in 1957, according to research from picture archives, which prompted The Ashmolean to get in touch with the Indian High Commission in 2019.
According to a statement from the museum, the university council approved the item’s return in March.
The museum claimed to have purchased the statue from Sotheby’s in 1967. It said it had no idea how Dr. J.R. Belmont, a collector, had obtained it.
