Ashmolean returns 16th-century bronze taken from Hindu temple

The Ashmolean Museum at the University of Oxford has repatriated a 16^th-century bronze statue to the Government of India after it was found to have been taken from a Hindu temple.  

The museum acquired the bronze icon of Saint Thirumankai Alvar in good faith from the private collector JR Belmont in 1967, via Sotheby’s auction house.  

In 2019, an independent French scholar alerted the museum to a photograph, taken in 1957, showing the statue in the temple of Shri Soundarrajaperumal Kovil in Tamil Nadu, southern India.  

The photo was found in the archive of the Institut Français de Pondichéry and the École française d’Extrême-Orient. 

The scholar identified the bronze as one of a number of objects in collections in Europe and the US recorded in the organisation’s archive. 

Although no formal claim had been made, the Ashmolean contacted the Indian High Commission to request further information, including any police records, and indicate the museum’s willingness to discuss the possible return of the object to India. 

The High Commissioner thanked the Ashmolean and the university for being proactive in the matter and passed the information on to the Indian authorities. 

Following this, a temple executive officer filed a police report noting that a modern replica had replaced the original bronze, although no previous police or news reports of a theft of the object had been recorded.

The Indian High Commissioner made a formal claim for the return of the bronze in March 2020. 

Following delays due to the Covid pandemic, further research and metal analysis were carried out on the object in 2022, which informed a full report on its provenance.  

The High Commissioner's claim was subsequently supported by the Ashmolean’s Board of Visitors and approved by the University Council in March 2024. The Charity Commission approved the transfer in December 2024. 

A celebration took place at the High Commission of India in London this week to mark the formal handover of the object. The event was attended by the director of the Ashmolean, Xa Sturgis, and MallicaKumbera Landrus, the head of the museum’s Department of Eastern Art. 

Sturgis said: “The Ashmolean is pleased to see this important object returned to India and we are grateful to the Indian authorities and scholars who have helped establish its provenance. The museum and the University of Oxford are committed to ethical collections practices and continued research into our collections, their origins and their history.” 

A spokesperson for the High Commission of India thanked the museum for its “for its partnership and for its decision to return a 16th-century bronze icon of Saint Thirumankai Alvar to its original purpose as an object of worship”.  

“Enabling the return of this bronze statue to the Soundararaja Perumal temple in Tamil Nadu demonstrates the museum’s strong leadership and commendable moral clarity,” added the spokesperson.  

“The government and the people of India appreciate this action and effort, which is not merely restoration of an object of art, but the reunification of an icon of faith with its intended shrine, restoring memory, and enabling cultural continuity.”