SOAS & Freer|Sackler Shamelessly Host Emma Bunker, “Co-Conspirator #2” in Asian Antiquities Smuggling Case

Summary 

• In July 2019, SOAS’s Southeast Asian Art Academic Programme (SAAAP) and the Freer|Sackler Galleries organised a workshop at the Museum of Vietnamese History in Ho Chi Minh City to prepare a catalogue for the Museum. 

• Among the speakers they invited was Ms. Emma C. Bunker, notorious in the Asian art and archaeology field – and in law enforcement circles – for actively assisting dealers of looted Cambodian antiquities.

• Efforts by Bunker, with her colleague Douglas Latchford, to hide the origins of stolen antiquities were exposed in legal filings by the US government against Sotheby’s in 2012 and Nancy Wiener in 2016.

• Neither Bunker nor Latchford was charged, but their unethical activity drew widespread revulsion. The New York Times published an article specifically about the pair in 2017. UPDATE: On 7 October 2019, US Homeland Security Investigators (HSI) reported that they had seized a 10th-century Khmer sculpture from a San Francisco auction house in connection with HSI’s ongoing investigation, called “Indochinese Peninsula Plunder,” into Douglas Latchford’s smuggling activities. UPDATE: On 27 November 2019, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced its indictment charging Latchford with “wire fraud, smuggling, conspiracy and related charges pertaining to his trafficking in stolen and looted Cambodian antiquities.”

• By hosting Bunker, SOAS and Freer|Sackler show an utter disrespect for Asian ethical and legal rights to cultural heritage. 

• Co-organisers Dr. Peter Sharrock of SOAS and Dr. Emma Natalya Stein of Freer|Sackler embarrass the Museum of Vietnamese History and the other workshop participants by linking them to an infamous supporter of the sale of stolen Asian artefacts. 

• Several other aspects of the workshop repeat colonial-era methodology and raise questions about the view of Asian art being promoted by SOAS and Freer|Sackler. Worryingly, the two institutions may work together again on a catalogue for an Indonesian national collection. 

• This situation follows the exposure that last year SOAS accepted the donation of an unprovenanced and therefore very possibly looted 13^th-century Thai Buddha statue. Sharrock encouraged and facilitated the gift’s acceptance; the donors then obtained a tax deduction and declared the donation given in Sharrock’s honour.

Below I describe in detail the above points with reference to emails and documents disclosed by SOAS through Freedom of Information (FOI) as well as public sources including US government documents. The files provided by SOAS under FOI may be seen here. 

Summer Programme and Catalogue for the Museum of Vietnamese History Ho Chi Minh City

The Southeast Asian Art Academic Programme (SAAAP), run by SOAS, University of London, is funded by a £15 million donation from Chicago’s Alphawood Foundation. SAAAP is probably the world’s largest ever privately endowed academic programme dedicated to Southeast Asian art and archaeology. 

From 15-19 July 2019, SAAAP hosted a “Summer Programme” in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. It co-organized the event with the Smithsonian’s Freer|Sackler Galleries in coordination with the Museum of Vietnamese History in Ho Chi Minh City, where the meetings took place. The Summer Programme’s purpose was to lay the groundwork for the writing of a “first international standard” catalogue for the Museum of Vietnamese History. (SOAS disclosure 1.8, p. 5) The publication of the future catalogue is also funded by SAAAP. 

The first three days of the Summer Programme were devoted to a workshop in which nineteen researchers presented papers for the future catalogue to an audience including Vietnamese museum staff and four Southeast Asian alumni of SAAAP’s Alphawood Scholarship programme. After the workshop, the speakers and audience members viewed the collections of the Museum. Then, for two days, participants toured museums and archaeological sites in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta region. The Summer Programme schedule may be seen here.

The Summer Programme was co-organised by Dr. Peter Sharrock, Communications and Outreach Manager of SAAAP and a part-time lecturer, and Dr. Emma Natalya Stein, Curatorial Fellow for Southeast Asian art at the Freer|Sackler Galleries. SAAAP provided a budget to cover accommodation, transportation and meals for all of the Programme participants, including speakers and audience members coming from outside of Vietnam. (SOAS disclosure 1.8)

In the list of speakers, one name particularly stands out: Ms. Emma C. Bunker. A former board member and consultant to the Denver Art Museum, Bunker is the co-author with Mr. Douglas Latchford of three coffee-table books on the art of Cambodia. She gave a paper at the workshop entitled, “Early Gold in the Delta.” (Schedule, p. 5) In the short bio she submitted for the workshop, she referred to her research on metalwork in “Central Asia, China and Southwest Asia.” (SOAS disclosure 2, p. 6) She made no mention of her work in Southeast Asian art, where she is known for her active assistance in the sale of looted antiquities from Cambodia and Thailand to foreign buyers. 

Examples of Bunker’s activities were exposed by government attorneys in two legal actions in the US, summarized below.  

Emma Bunker as “Co-Conspirator #2” in The People of the State of New York against Nancy Wiener 

In March 2016, US federal officials raided the Nancy Wiener Gallery in New York, seizing three antiquities identified as looted from South and Southeast Asia. In December of that year, the office of the New York District Attorney (DA) filed criminal charges against Nancy Wiener, stating that she used her gallery “to buy, smuggle, launder, and sell millions of dollars’ worth of antiquities stolen from Afghanistan, Cambodia, China, India, Pakistan and Thailand.” Wiener “and her co-conspirators have trafficked in illegal antiquities for decades.”  (DA Complaint, p. 2) Because of Wiener’s prominence in the art world, the charges made news headlines around the globe. 

The DA detailed how Emma Bunker, referred to in the filing as “Co-Conspirator #2,” and her friend, Douglas Latchford, “Co-Conspirator #1,” helped Wiener to falsify the provenance (origins and ownership history) of a 10^th-century bronze statue of the Buddha seated on a Naga (a serpent deity) looted from either Thailand or Cambodia. Wiener arranged with Bunker and Latchford to place a photo of this ‘Naga Buddha’ statue in a book, Khmer Bronzes, co-authored by Bunker and Latchford and published with Latchford’s own money in 2011. As the DA observed, publishing looted antiquities is a common tactic to legitimise them for sale. In November 2011, Latchford sold the statue to Wiener for US$500,000. (DA Complaint, pp. 3-4)

To facilitate onward selling of the Naga Buddha, Bunker suggested a fake provenance that was then reviewed and approved in turn by Latchford and Wiener. (DA Complaint, pp. 3-4) In an email seized by the DA, Bunker wrote to Latchford, 

 “I wonder whether it might not be better to say that you bought it from a Thai collector when you first moved to Bangkok in the 1950s. Who, other than Neil and Yothin, knows when you acquired it.” 

A few weeks later Bunker wrote a provenance letter and sent it to Latchford. In it she stated,

“I first saw the Naga Buddha in Douglas Latchford’s London flat sometime in the early 1970s, when I was there on my way to China.’”

(Ralph Blumenthal and Tom Mashberg, “Expert Opinion of Elaborate Ruse? Scrutiny for Scholars’ Role in Art Sales,” New York Times, 30 March 2017).  

The DA also noted that: 

“In another email, Co-Conspirator #1 [Latchford] told Defendant [Wiener] that he typically gave Co-Conspirator #2 [Bunker] bronze statues in exchange for false letters of provenance.” (DA Complaint, p. 4) 

Wiener displayed the Naga Buddha statue in her New York gallery with a price of US$1.5 million, until US authorities seized it and other artefacts in March 2016. The legal process is ongoing. 

“It was definitely stolen from Prasat Chen:” Emma Bunker’s Role in United States of America v. A 10^thCentury Cambodian Sculpture, Currently Located in Sotheby’s in New York, New York

In March 2011, Sotheby’s New York office was about to auction a 10^th-century stone Cambodian statue, with a catalogue estimate of US$2-3 million, when it received a letter from the Cambodian government stating that the statue had been illegally removed from the country. Sotheby’s pulled the sculpture from sale, and the US government opened an investigation. In April 2012, US federal authorities filed a legal complaint to induce Sotheby’s and the statue’s seller, a Belgian resident, to return it to Cambodia. 

In its complaint, the US government wrote that the statue had been stolen from Prasat Chen, a heavily looted 10^th-century temple in Cambodia, and transported out of the country by a Thai-Cambodian smuggling network around 1972. The statue was ultimately delivered to the London dealer Spink & Son, through, according to the government, the assistance of Latchford, who knew it had been looted. Spink & Son sold the statue to a Belgian businessman in 1975. In March 2010, the businessman’s widow consigned it to Sotheby’s, which consulted “regularly” with Latchford about the statue. Sotheby’s also engaged Bunker to write a catalogue essay and give a lecture about it. 

Emails seized by the government reveal that several months before the auction, Bunker began giving advice to Sotheby’s on how to sell the statue without attracting attention from the Cambodian government. First, she warned Sotheby’s not to sell it “publicly” as Cambodia had “clear evidence that it was definitely stolen from Prasat Chen at Koh Ker, as the feet are still in situ.” When Sotheby’s then asked about Cambodia’s attitude to cultural property protection, she again advised Sotheby’s to avoid “sale with any publicity” and said she would try to get in touch with her contacts in Cambodia. A few weeks later, Bunker wrote Sotheby’s that she understood from her “cultural spies and museum director” that Cambodia would not request the repatriation of the statue. She then advised Sotheby’s that “legally and ethically you can happily sell the piece, and since it is probably the last chance to buy such a treasure, should get a very good price.” However, she warned, “perhaps not good to show or mention the feet still in situ in the catalogue.” (US complaint, pp. 13-16)

Ahead of the auction, Sotheby’s sales staff, on the advice of their legal department, twice wrote to Bunker suggesting that either she or Sotheby’s inform Mr. Hab Touch (then Director-General of the General Department of Heritage at the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, Cambodia) of the planned sale, and provide him with information such as the full provenance and a copy of her catalogue essay so that “he will be properly informed well in advance” of the auction. Bunker refused, however, remarking that to do so “would be like waving a red flag in front of a bull” and could cause him to act. (US complaint, pp. 16-18, and Sotheby’s Exhibit 10, pp. 3-7).  

In sum, Bunker’s successive pieces of advice to Sotheby’s were: to keep the sale out of public view; to conceal the knowledge that the statue was stolen; to reject legal advice, and to avoid informing the relevant official in Cambodia. 

UPDATE: On 27 November 2019, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced its indictment charging Douglas Latchford with “wire fraud, smuggling, conspiracy and related charges pertaining to his trafficking in stolen and looted Cambodian antiquities.” In its indictment, the US Attorney described Latchford working with Bunker, referred to in the filing as “the Scholar,” to hide the looted origins of the Koh Ker statue. The US Attorney stated that it was Latchford who had removed the statue from Cambodia in or around 1972, and sent it to Spink & Son, a London auction house; however, he gave Sotheby’s false and conflicting stories about his involvement with it. Bunker is quoted as advising Latchford, “I think maybe you shouldn’t be known to have been associated with the Koh Ker Guardian figures[.] … Let’s fudge a little, and just put the blame squarely on [Auction House-1] [Spink & Son] … ” (US indictment, p. 8)

In the end, contrary to Bunker’s prediction, Cambodia did indeed write to Sotheby’s to halt the sale in March 2011. In December 2013, the case was settled, with the sculpture being returned to Cambodia. Amidst the publicity to the case, between 2013 and 2016, statues stolen from the same temple, Prasat Chen, were also returned to Cambodia by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Christie’s, the Norton Simon Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Denver Art Museum. 

Unethical Behaviour Legitimised and Rewarded by the SOAS Southeast Asian Art Academic Programme (SAAAP) and Freer|Sackler

Bunker and Latchford were not charged in either the Wiener or Sotheby’s cases, but their crooked actions drew international attention. Indeed, the New York Times published a news article specifically about the pair: Ralph Blumenthal and Tom Mashberg, “Expert Opinion or Elaborate Ruse? Scrutiny for Scholars’ Role in Art Sales,” 30 Mar 2017.  UPDATE: On 27 November 2019, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced its indictment charging Douglas Latchford with trafficking in looted Khmer antiquities.

Bunker and Latchford have a history of publicly promoting the interests of private collectors, for instance, here, here and here. They together authored three coffee-table books on Cambodian artefacts, Adoration and Glory (2004), Khmer Gold (2008) and Khmer Bronzes (2011), lavishly illustrated volumes whose publication was funded by Latchford himself. The first two books, printed before the pair’s role in the US legal cases was exposed, are prefaced by letters of praise from Cambodian officials. The three volumes contain numerous photos of objects in private collections including many from Latchford’s own. In 2012, Anne Le Maistre, then head of UNESCO’s Phnom Penh office, commented that one of the books (probably referring to Adoration and Glory) is more or less “the inventory of the missing cultural patrimony of Cambodia.” (Tom Mashberg, “Claims of Looting Shadow Expert in Khmer Art,” New York Times, 12 December 2012) 

SAAAP and Freer|Sackler invited Emma Bunker to a workshop whose purpose was to prepare a catalogue of ancient artefacts akin to the looted items Bunker helped to market. Why have the organisers of the programme — Dr. Peter Sharrock of SOAS and Dr. Emma Natalya Stein of Freer|Sackler – condoned Bunker’s unethical actions? Why did they think it was appropriate to introduce this individual, who demonstrated a clear disdain for cultural heritage protection, to Vietnamese museum officials, scholars and curators, and to SOAS alumni, working in the archaeology and heritage fields in their home countries, who also attended the Summer Programme expecting to engage with respectable scholars? Will SAAAP publish a contribution by Bunker in the future museum catalogue, further publicly shaming the institutions involved and the other contributors?

This project is actually the latest in known periodic collaborations between Sharrock and Bunker over at least the last several years. Bunker published two essays by Sharrock in her and Latchford’s 2011 book. In 2016, Bunker and Sharrock co-authored an article. He gave a talk at her long-time former institution, the Denver Art Museum, in 2017. In the courses on Angkor and on the Maritime Silk Road that he teaches at SOAS, Sharrock includes in the reading lists two of Bunker and Latchford’s self-published volumes which include looted Khmer items from Latchford’s own collection.

Like Bunker, Sharrock has also demonstrated disdain for Asian cultural heritage protection. Last year, he recommended that two wealthy American alumni of SOAS donate an unprovenanced, and therefore very possibly looted, 13^th-century stone Thai Buddha sculpture to the university. He encouraged SOAS’s acceptance of the gift despite the lack of documentation that it left Thailand legally. The donors received a tax deduction and declared that they were presenting the gift in honour of Dr. Sharrock and another SAAAP official, Dr. Hettie Elgood, who likewise brushed off the lack of provenance. Shamefully, SOAS has repeatedly refused calls to return the statue to Thailand.

Colonialist Approaches to Asian Art

Both Bunker and Sharrock actively assisted those who sought financial rewards from questionable artefacts. They disrespected the ethical and legal rights of Asian peoples and nations to their cultural heritage. Their treatment of Asian culture as a commodity for foreign consumption can only be characterized as colonialist. 

Other aspects of the Summer Programme in Vietnam also raise questions about the attitude towards Asian art being promoted by organisers Sharrock and Stein. First, it is notable that of the 19 speakers they invited, 12 are foreign. Only 7 are Vietnamese, including 6 based in Vietnam and one, Dr. Vu Hong Lien, based in London. The workshop took place in English, and there is no indication that translation services were provided by the organisers, even as this event took place in Ho Chi Minh City and focused on the collection of a Vietnamese national museum. When foreign-based speakers are parachuted into Asia, and outnumber local speakers two to one, for an event in a foreign language with no translation to the local language, who benefits?  

The composition of speakers is also unusual in another way: six – that is, half of the 12 foreigners – are above age 70 (with the oldest 89) and retired from full-time employ. With all due respect for the work of these individuals, none of their work is absolutely indispensible to this particular catalogue; other researchers could provide contributions equally or more appropriate. The proportion of retirees in this project also stands out as participation in funded workshops and publications are key means of career advancement for working academics. Why did the organisers provide the chance to participate to those who have already benefited for years from publication channels? Why not give opportunities to say, more Vietnamese scholars, even if translation would be needed? 

Sharrock’s view of which participants in this workshop are the important ones is indicated by how he described the group in the July 2019 edition of the SAAAP Newsletter (p. 19):

The workshop is hosted by Museum Director Dr Hoang Anh Tuan and his staff, who have also arranged a two-day visit to three museums and archaeological sites in the Delta. As well as leading Vietnamese archaeologists and art historians, participants include international historians, curators and art historians including John Whitmore (Michigan), Paul Lavy (Hawaii), Pierre Baptiste (Musée Guimet, Paris), Kenson Kwok (Singapore), Emma Bunker (Denver), Emma Stein (Freer|Sackler, Washington), William Noseworthy (McNeese State), Pinna Indorf (Singapore), Ambra Calo (ANU Sydney).

Aside from the Director of the Museum of Vietnamese History – who is cited not for his scholarship but for arranging outings for the group – Sharrock gives the names of none of the six other Vietnamese scholars. Why doesn’t he name them? He lists only foreign speakers, and these he distinguishes from the Vietnamese by describing them as “international.” Why doesn’t Sharrock consider the Vietnamese scholars (who have also published and presented in other international fora) to be likewise “international?” 

Sharrock’s attitude towards the Vietnamese is also illustrated in an email of 12 March disclosed by SOAS under FOI, in which Sharrock wrote to SOAS’s SAAAP Programme Manager about his progress in arranging the July workshop:

With the delays and the language problems and a more bureaucratic Museum Director than in Da Nang, the issue now is how much of it I can get on the road for July. (SOAS disclosure 1.2, p. 6-7)

Thus, while Sharrock publicly acknowledged the Museum Director’s help in the SAAAP July Newsletter cited earlier, he denigrated him within SOAS as a bureaucrat. The put-down indicates Sharrock’s lack of appreciation for the fact that Sharrock himself is an outsider seeking access to a collection managed and safeguarded by a Vietnamese national museum. Shouldn’t he be engaging with the museum staff with understanding and respect for their approaches, needs and systems in carrying out their responsibilities toward Vietnamese national artefacts? Sharrock also in his email complained of “language problems.” But as he lacks Vietnamese language skills, isn’t any struggle entirely his own fault? His depiction of the Vietnamese museum Director and staff as obstacles to be overcome, instead of true partners in this project, is indicated by his formulation beginning with the series of complaints and ending with, “the issue now is how much of it I can get on the road.” Are the Vietnamese anything more than hosts for Sharrock to fulfil his own ambitions? Again, we must ask: who benefits from this project?

These questions also arise regarding the planned museum catalogue, which Sharrock posits as “a first international standard catalogue” of the museum. It will only be in English. Sharrock is the salaried Communications and Outreach Manager of SAAAP and developed the catalogue as an “Outreach” initiative for SAAAP. He applied for funding for an English publication from the SAAAP Project Board in late 2018. During the Board’s deliberations on his proposal, one Board Member “noted that a planned Vietnamese language version was envisaged by the proposal, but was not part of the proposal, and would emerge independently in due course.” (SAAAP Project Board Minutes, Dec 2018, p. 3) This odd phrasing could be expressed more clearly: ‘Sharrock is requesting funding for a book on a Vietnamese national collection that the majority of Vietnamese people won’t be able to read. Neither Sharrock nor SAAAP is interested in producing Vietnamese version. Someone else can do that later.’ The Board Member’s awkward language draws attention to the fact that this catalogue is part of SAAAP’s “Outreach” programme, which is supposed to “focus on public engagement” and “raise awareness of scholarship” of Southeast Asian art, among other goals. (SOAS disclosure 1.8, p. 1). The involvement of more Vietnamese contributors and the provision of translation would seem to fit well with those aims. In Southeast Asian Studies, translation, heavily dependent on funding, is not routine but also not unusual; for example, Seameo-SPAFA and University of Kyoto’s CSEAS have regularly provided translation from and into Southeast Asian languages for their publications and events. SAAAP certainly had both a compelling rationale and plenty of funds to support bilingual publication: why did Sharrock only want an English catalogue?

In sum: what messages are communicated about Vietnamese art when SOAS and Freer|Sackler: 

• invite a notorious facilitator of the sale of looted Asian artefacts to contribute to a workshop and catalogue of Vietnamese national artefacts; 

• award the opportunity to contribute to almost twice as many foreign scholars as Vietnamese scholars;

• publish the catalogue only in English so that it cannot be read by most Vietnamese people; 

• do not name Vietnamese scholars while individually acknowledging foreign ones; 

• exclude Vietnamese academics from being “international,” and 

• make no effort to enable sharing of scholarship in Vietnamese language at an event about Vietnamese culture taking place inside a Vietnamese institution. 

In highlighting these aspects, I am well aware that the staff of the Museum of Vietnamese History themselves assisted in the arrangements for the workshop and catalogue, which can potentially bring multiple benefits to the Museum, such as attracting more visitors and researchers, and perhaps, more donations. 

However, any benefits cannot allow the donors to ignore questions of integrity and ethics. Even as the foreign institutions here may display a generous impulse, they have the obligation to diligently attend to the Vietnamese museum’s role in education, public life in Vietnam, and management of cultural heritage. 

Just as a museum is not merely a storehouse, a catalogue, especially one for a national collection, is not just an inventory: it is a presentation of cultural and political values. A catalogue sends messages through what it includes and what it leaves out. Its descriptions and narratives put forward a view of how art and history should be understood and treated, and through its individual and institutional contributors, it signals whose scholarship matters. To disseminate information and make interpretations based on an important museum’s collection carry a great responsibility to history as well as to the future. The choice made here to deploy a colonialist and obsolete methodology has solemn consequences. 

Is it yet possible for SOAS and Freer|Sackler to think through the issues and change course? 

Sadly, I fear the prospect for change is not great. This is not the first example of colonialist and self-serving behaviour by Sharrock, and SOAS has continually supported him. In addition to the unethical acceptance of the Thai Buddha statue described above, Sharrock also swept aside the rights of Southeast Asian students by rigging the SAAAP Alphawood Scholarship selection process. He deployed a regressive, colonialist view of Southeast Asian art in a vicious and deceitful appeal to a senior administrator to discredit academic colleagues at SOAS. Despite these scandals, he has been protected by SOAS’s head, Ms. Valerie Amos, no doubt because of his friendship with Mr. Fred Eychaner, the wealthy Chicago businessman and Asian art collector whose fortune funds the Alphawood Foundation – and who is SOAS’s largest donor by far. SOAS’s continuing failure to return the Thai sculpture to Thailand suggests it is more concerned with personal embarassment to its staff than in abiding by international standards of treatment of cultural property. The impunity from punishment enjoyed by Sharrock is such that he felt comfortable to ridicule Prof. Shane McCausland, head of the SOAS School of Arts and Sharrock’s immediate supervisor, as revealed in a recently disclosed February 2019 email. (SOAS disclosure 1.1, p. 7) 

Meanwhile, even as SAAAP has fuelled Sharrock’s colonialist activities, it also sponsored “Decolonising the History of Art and Archaeology: Publishing Cultures in Southeast Asia and Beyond,” a symposium organized by SAAAP’s Research and Publications sub-group (of which Sharrock isn’t a member) together with SOAS PhD students. Held in London in May 2019, the event brought together speakers from Southeast Asia, the UK and elsewhere to consider issues of authority and hierarchy in knowledge production and academic publication. This programme, unlike Sharrock’s efforts, is in fact consistent with official SOAS policy to critically address colonialist thought and systems in university protocol and practice. Under the “Decolonising SOAS Vision” adopted by the university in 2017, SOAS made several pledges to progress decolonisation, such as by “embedding within our policies and practices a deeper understanding that [impacts of colonialism] produce and reproduce injustices and inequalities within education” and adhering “to practices of reflective intellectual collaboration with institutions and researchers from the Global South as co-producers of knowledge.” How does SOAS reconcile such stated commitments – which it loudly advertises in the press and social media – with senior management’s rock-solid backing for a staff member who rejects the rights of Asian people to their cultural heritage, the standing of Asian people as scholars, and the rights of Asian students to a fair academic process? Even as many SOAS staff and students sincerely and diligently engage with the legacy of colonialism through the “Decolonising SOAS Vision” and efforts like the “Decolonising the History of Art and Archaeology” symposium, one must ask, is their work being used by SOAS Administration as window dressing to shield the colonialist activity that SOAS Administration continually supports? Is a staff member, by virtue of being the friend of the university’s largest donor, exempt from Decolonising and other SOAS policies? 

Worryingly, Sharrock said he is planning another project with an Asian museum. In an internal email of March 2019, he wrote that SAAAP and Freer|Sackler will be working together on a catalogue and exhibition for a public collection in Indonesia. (SOAS disclosure 1.2, p. 5) By working with Sharrock, the Indonesian institution will be open to exploitation, for even though he may proclaim their collaboration a partnership, the Indonesians can expect no more respect than he accorded his Vietnamese ‘partners.’

Note: For those interested in reading more about the Wiener and Sotheby’s cases: there are many resources freely available on the internet as both have been written about extensively in the media and by academics, attorneys and researchers of art crime. To suggest a few examples, the New York Times has published detailed reporting on both cases; the Antiquities Coalition posted a series on the Wiener case in March 2018 here. Insightful coverage of the cases – with scrutiny of other activities of certain of the persons involved – has been produced by the investigating journalist Jason Felch on his Chasing Aphrodite website: on Nancy Wiener, here; on Sotheby’s, here; on Emma Bunker, here and here, and on Douglas Latchford, here.