The linga, a looted sculpture of a Hindu deity has been sent back to Nepal with the help of the Art Institute of Chicago. The work is a representation of the Hindu deity Shiva with four faces. The statue is also called caturmukhalinga. The sculpture dates back to the 6th century.
It was privately held and the Art Institute of Chicago assisted in helping Nepal recover the sculpture. According to the spokesperson, who declined to state the name of the collector, the work had never been accessioned by the Art Institute of Chicago. The museum did not provide a provenance for the work or a date for when it is believed to have been stolen.
“The Art Institute of Chicago has worked closely with a lender and the Government of Nepal to arrange the safe transfer of the Linga with Four Faces (caturmukhalinga) back to its home country,” the spokesperson said. “We are extremely pleased with this outcome and are grateful for the partnership of the lender and the Government of Nepal.”
The news comes a little over a month after a similar return to Nepal involved another major U.S. institution, the Dallas Museum of Art in Texas, which sent back a sacred stele of Lakshmi-Narayana that had been stolen from a Hindu shrine by looters in 1984. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation got involved after experts identified the work as having likely been stolen in 2019.