Bonhams, the world’s oldest and largest auctioneer of fine arts and antiques in France, last week called off a planned auction of five 600-year-old stolen Nepali antiquities after facing flak from Nepali journalists, activists, governments, and UNESCO.  The gilded bronze statues were stolen between the period from 1970 to 1980 from Taleju Temple of Patan district in Nepal. 

A Facebook group, Lost Art of Nepal, run by an anonymous administrator, first traced the statues to Bonhams where they were put for auctions. The administrator then reported it to Nepali Times, a Nepali newspaper, which then broke the story. 

As the news spread, heritage activists, journalists, and even common Nepali took to social media, opposing the auction. Rabindra Nath Puri, a heritage activist in Nepal, also approached UNESCO to put pressure on Bonhoms.  

As the noise grew louder, Nepal’s foreign ministry also swung into action. Nepal’s embassy in Paris contacted UNESCO officials in France and also asked the French government for calling off the auction. 

Finally, on Friday last week, Bonhams announced withdrawing the stolen Nepali antiquities from the auction. The auction house also wrote to all relevant authorities, journalists, and activists, and institutions, informing them about the decision.

If the auction had gone ahead, heritage activists claim, they would have been bought by anonymous collections and could have vanished forever. 

“I am really happy that our gods are returning home, finally all my research are paying off, this has been great teamwork,” the administrator of the ‘Lost Arts of Nepal’ group, who first traced the items, was quoted as saying by The Nepali Times. 

Importantly, the cancelation would discourage future auctions of stolen antiquities. 

“Halting this sale sets an important precedent: Paris is no longer the place to go if you want to sell stolen heritage,” Erin Thompson, an American art crime professor, said.

The black market in stolen Nepali heritage won’t be able to operate in the dark, he said, as Nepali activists and journalists are now paying close attention to such practices. 

Reports also claimed that the Nepali government has asked the French government to return these antiquities. 

In the last few years, the Nepali government has made concentrated efforts to repatriates stolen Nepali antiquities from abroad. In April this year, an 800-year old Laxmi-Narayan figure, originally from Patko Tole in Patan district, was returned to Nepal by the Dallas Museum of Art. 

(SAM)