Cambodian Government Claims Statue in New York Was Stolen

The Cambodian government has asked the United States government to return a thousand-year-old statue of a mythic warrior to Cambodia. Some experts believe that the statue, which now sits at Sotheby’s in New York, was taken from the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge during the Vietnam War.

The statue has a catalog estimate of between $2 and $3 million and was set to auction last March; however, it was pulled from auction after the Cambodian government complained that the statue had been “illegally removed” from Cambodia. Sotheby’s claim that no proof exists to indicate that the statue was illegally taken. Cambodian official maintain that the the pedestal from which the statue was severed proves it was taken illegally because it still holds the statue’s feet.

For more on this story, see Tom Mashberg and Ralph Blumenthal, Mythic Warrior is Captive in Global Art Conflict, The New York Times, Feb. 28, 2012.

Special thanks to Joel Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) for bringing this article to my attention.