Australia will return sculptures to India
Sydney: The National Gallery has confirmed that Australia will return 14 artworks to India, including six stolen and illegally exported.
Artworks of sculptures, photographs, and a scroll, which had stolen, Australia likely to transfer to India, the Canberra gallery has identified the works to be returned to India. All artworks and sculptures were stolen, looted from unknown places.
The artwork consists of religious and cultural artworks worth US$2.2 million, including some dating back to the 12th century.
Gallery director Nick Mitzevich confirmed that the sculpture and artwork will be handed over to the Indian government within months.
Nearly thirteen artworks are connected to alleged trafficker Subhash Kapoor, a former Manhattan art dealer who was the subject of a massive US federal investigation known as Operation Hidden Idol.
The National Gallery of Australia has already returned several other works it acquired via Kapoor, including a US$5 million bronze statue of the Hindu god Shiva that had been stolen from a Tamil Nadu temple.
Several antiquities had confiscated by Kapoor was dated back to the 11th and 12th centuries, when the Chola dynasty presided over a flourishing of Hindu art in Tamil Nadu.
