The estate of art and antiquities dealer Douglas A.J. Latchford, an art and antiquities dealer has agreed to pay surrender $12 million and a 17th Vietnamese bronze statue to settle a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Government, The New York Times reports. Latchford was accused of selling ancient artifacts stolen from Cambodia but died before he could stand trial.
Latchford was famous for being enamored with Khmer art in the 1950s, amassing one of the world’s largest private collections of Cambodian antiquities.
Although long beloved in Cambodia for his generous donations to the National Museum in Phnom Penh, Latchford’s reputation dramatically shifted toward the end of his life as American authorities — in civil and criminal cases beginning in 2012 — accused Latchford of helping plunder Cambodia’s sacred temples for prized relics that netted him millions in sales to rich foreigners and prominent museums, according to The Denver Post.
A federal grand jury charged the dealer and collector in 2019 with a host of crimes, including wire fraud and smuggling, related to the decades-long looting scheme. He died in 2020 before the trial began.
“For years, Douglas Latchford made millions from selling looted antiquities in the U.S. art market, stashing his ill-gotten gains offshore. This historic forfeiture action and settlement shows that we will be relentless in following the money wherever it leads to fight the illicit trade in cultural patrimony,” Attorney Damian of the Southern District of New York U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a press release.
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ART News reports that the Cambodian government has been central to the restitution debate in recent years and has gone to great lengths to require works from museums and institutions that have been looted from religious and archaeological sites. One such institution is the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where Cambodian officials believe dozens of looted works are on display or in storage, many of which were sold or gifted to the museum by Latchford.
Latchford’s daughter, who, as reported by the New York Times, inherited an “undetermined amount of money from her father” and more than 125 artifacts suspected to have been looted from Cambodia after his death in 2020, agreed to return the objects to Cambodia, as well forfeit “tainted proceeds” from the sale of looted works.
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