The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) in Sydney recently announced its decision to return a temple carving, also known as tunala, portraying a Hindu goddess, back to Nepal. The strut, originally taken from the 13th-century Ratneshwar temple in Lalitpur, a city located southeast of Kathmandu, will be handed over during a ceremony at the Patan Museum in Kathmandu on Tuesday, with Australia’s assistant foreign minister, Tim Watts, in attendance.
This act aligns with Australia’s commitment to ethical standards and international obligations, as stated by Watts, and is expected to strengthen bilateral relations between the two countries.
The stolen Temple Carving, representing a shalabhanjika or yakshi, a deity associated with trees, was one of six struts that were pilfered from the shrine in 1975. It is believed to have been taken after Mary Shepherd Slusser, an expert in architectural studies and Nepalese cultural history, identified and photographed the wooden pieces at the temple in Lalitpur. Shortly after her visit, the ornate woodwork vanished.
During the 1980s, numerous valuable artifacts were stolen and illicitly transported out of Nepal. In recent years, grassroots campaigns have emerged, aiming to bring back these artifacts, many of which are currently housed in prominent museums, to their home country. The Ratneshwar temple strut gained attention within these campaigns in 2021, when Nepali scholars spotted it on social media.
AGNSW acquired the strut in 2000 as part of a bequest from Alex Biancardi, a collector of South Asian art with Australian-British heritage. Biancardi had connections to Douglas Latchford, a discredited dealer of antiquities who passed away in 2020 before facing charges of smuggling offenses in the United States.
