Museums around the world are coming under mounting pressure to return or explain the presence of potentially looted Cambodian relics in their collections, some of which may have been obtained by the late Douglas Latchford, the disgraced Bangkok-based art dealer and collector.
The Denver Art Museum intends to return to Cambodia four cultural relics originally acquired Latchford, while the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York faces scrutiny from the Cambodian government in regard to dozens of Khmer Empire antiquities in its possession that officials believe were looted whilst the country was at war, citing newly discovered evidence.
Cambodian officials told The New York Times
they have developed a spreadsheet of 45 “highly significant” items at the Met that, new evidence suggests, were stolen before being donated or sold to the museum.
