The Denver Art Museum says it has returned a 10th-century sandstone sculpture to the government of Cambodia.
The piece, “Torso of Rama,” stands more than 6 feet tall and is missing its head, arms and feet. It likely was looted from the country decades ago, along with scores of other ancient Khmer objects that landed in museums and collections across the U.S.
DAM acquired the piece in 1986 from the Doris Weiner Gallery in New York City. At the time, the museum says, it had no evidence that the statue left the country inappropriately.
The Cambodian government has been pressing for the return of objects stolen during its tumultuous civil war in the 1970s and identified the sculpture in Denver in 2013 specifically, along with other artifacts in the Cleveland Museum of Art and New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
DAM said its curatorial staff reached out proactively to the Cambodians for more information about the statue’s origins.
“In 2015, the Cambodian government contacted us for the first time and provided us with additional facts that led to the object’s deaccession and return,” according to DAM communications director Kristy Bassuener.
DAM’s move follows the efforts of other museums to repatriate items taken from the Southeast Asian country. The Metropolitan Museum returned two Khmer objects in 2013.
While the deaccessioning of antiquities is rare, it does happen in the museum world, where institutions can have tens of thousands of objects in their possession. In recent years, many collecting organizations have refined their procedures for vetting the provenance of the items they purchase.
DAM has updated its own rules since 1986. Currently any object under consideration with questionable origins is reviewed by its provenance committee — consisting of the director, deputy director, chief curator and head of exhibitions — which considers “why the piece is so important to acquire that it warrants special consideration,” according to Nancy Blomberg, chief curator and curator of native arts.
If the committee approves the purchase, the object goes through standard reviews by the acquisitions committee and the collections committee, made up of members of the board of trustees.
Objects with a price tag above $25,000 must be approved by the full board, a process that can take “between four and six months,” Blomberg said.
“Every museum develops its own acquisition policies and procedures — this is ours, and we think it is quite rigorous,” Blomberg said.
If a museum discovers that it holds an object that must be returned, it is liable for all costs. It likely will try to recoup its losses from the seller.
In DAM’s case, that is unlikely. Dealer Doris Weiner died in 2011.
Ray Mark Rinaldi: 303-954-1540 or rrinaldi@denverpost.com
