Name: U.S. officials demand that S.F. Asian Art Museum return allegedly stolen Thai relics
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U.S. officials demand that S.F. Asian Art Museum return allegedly stolen Thai relics

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This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateThe federal government has filed a lawsuit demanding that the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco return two ancient relics allegedly stolen from temples in Thailand, authorities said., filed Monday, says two 1,500-pound hand-carved decorative lintels were stolen from “ancient religious temples” in Thailand and exported to the United States without a license, according to a filing in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.“U.S. law requires U.S. museums to respect the rights of other countries to their own historical artifacts,” U.S. Attorney David Anderson said. “For years, we have tried to get the Asian Art Museum to return this stolen artwork to Thailand. With this federal filing, we call on the museum’s Board of Directors to do the right thing.”Museum officials said they’re already in the process of returning the artifacts.The sandstone lintels — one from the Nong Hong Temple dating between 1000 and 1080 and the other from Khao Lon Temple dating between 975 and 1025 — were removed from display in 2017 “to make them available for further examination,” Museum spokesperson Zac Rose said. Both were purchased by European dealers in the late 1960s, museum officials said.The lintel from the Nong Hong Temple joined the museum collection in 1966 as a gift from art collector Avery Brundage, and the lintel from Khao Lon Temple was acquired in 1968 as a purchase, museum officials said.Rose told The Chronicle on Tuesday that the museum’s governing board voted unanimously on Sept. 22 to continue “deaccessioning these artworks,” which refers to the process of removing them from the museum’s collection in preparation for their return to Thailand.In a Sept. 22 statement, museum officials said the decision to deaccession the lintels came after a three-year study of “information provided and reviewed by” officials with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Thailand, the San Francisco city attorney and museum officials.In a letter dated Oct. 8 on behalf of the museum and San Francisco, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera told Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Kaltsas, “From our discussions with you and AUSA Amanda Bettinelli over the past year, we had understood that we were moving toward resolving the Thai Government’s request without litigation, so we were surprised when you mentioned to us in July that there would need to be a complaint and stipulation for civil forfeiture in rem filed in federal court.”Herrera said the museum’s board already voted once to remove the lintels from the museum’s collection, and said, “There must be a second vote of the commission on this matter in six months’ time.” He said museum officials would have preferred to return the relics without litigation and said they “consistently anticipated a happy conclusion to this matter.” Herrera said they have cooperated with Homeland Security officials by taking the lintels out of exhibition and manufactured crates for storage and “anticipated travel.”Federal officials said they learned in 2017 that the relics had been illegally exported from Thailand, “rendering them forfeitable as property present in the United States,” and contacted museum officials for their repatriation. Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent in Charge Tatum King said Tuesday, “The theft and trafficking of cultural artifacts is a tradition as old as the cultures they represent.Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Area’s largest water districts.“Returning a nation’s cultural antiquities promotes goodwill with foreign governments and citizens, while significantly protecting the world’s cultural history and knowledge of past civilizations,” King said. “Federal importation laws provide HSI the authority to take a leading role in investigating crimes involving the illicit importation and distribution of cultural property and art.”In Herrera’s Oct. 8 letter, he says that federal officials “presented us with no evidence that these lintels were stolen.”“The museum’s study found no evidence that these lintels were removed from their sites contrary to the laws of Thailand, but the museum was also unable to locate copies of the export documents that the laws of that time required,” museum officials said in a statement on Sept. 22. “With this information in hand, the museum felt it was appropriate to begin the process of deaccessioning the artworks from the collection and to move forward with returning them to the Thai authorities.”Lauren Hernández is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: Twitter:@ByLHernandezUpdated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Area’s largest water districts.

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateThe federal government has filed a lawsuit demanding that the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco return two ancient relics allegedly stolen from temples in Thailand, authorities said., filed Monday, says two 1,500-pound hand-carved decorative lintels were stolen from “ancient religious temples” in Thailand and exported to the United States without a license, according to a filing in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.“U.S. law requires U.S. museums to respect the rights of other countries to their own historical artifacts,” U.S....

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Lauren Hernández

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U.S. officials demand that S.F. Asian Art Museum return allegedly stolen Thai relics

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