Cambodia says the Met looted artifacts linked to notorious Latchford
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Cambodian officials claim that the Met owns at least 33 stolen works of art associated with the late disgraced art dealer Douglas Latchford.
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Cambodia believes the Metropolitan Museum of Art has stolen artifacts in its collection
The Cambodian government officials revealed that a batch of Cambodian antiques donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art by a disgraced British antiquities trader has been plundered.
The charges were first reported by the New York Times, which described Cambodian officials as alleging that some of these artifacts were looted beginning in the 1980s. Many of the 13 artifacts in question were donated to the museum by Douglas A. Latchford, who was charged in 2019 with selling artifacts with falsified provenance.
Cambodia believes these artifacts should be reviewed by the Met with the goal of repatriation.
After various sources published stories in the Pandora Papers, a leaked trove of information about offshore tax havens, museum officials met with federal prosecutors in New York last year. These records contain details about Latchford, who died in 2020, and his company.
A complaint was brought in Manhattan's Federal District Court in 2021 regarding a Cambodian Khmer sculpture associated with Latchford that was in the Met's collection.
The Met claims that it has long returned looted artifacts in its collection to their respective countries and that information has been shared with Cambodian officials when artifact provenances have been revised.
Read next: US to return 30 stolen ancient Cambodian antiques
However, documents discovered on Latchford's computer may provide information on the Met's vetting process for the relics, according to Cambodian officials. Details on Latchford's professional link to Martin Lerner, the Met's former Asian Art curator, who purportedly worked with the dealer to procure some of the artifacts that may have been looted, have been included in the documentation, according to Cambodian officials.
Lerner told the Times, “Knowing what I know now, I should probably not have worked so closely with Mr. Latchford.”
Several antiques that passed through Latchford's hands are making their way back to Cambodia. After a three-year negotiation process, Latchford's daughter returned his $50 million collection of Khmer antiquities, which are suspected of containing plundered and smuggled artifacts, in February.
In a statement, a Met spokeswoman informed the Times that the museum has already exchanged provenance information with Cambodian officials and is in "close dialogue" regarding advancements in their investigation.
A Met spokesperson did not immediately respond to ARTnews request for additional comment.
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