Missing Kathmandu Sculpture Reportedly Turns up With London Dealer

(The Lost Arts of Nepal) 

The Lost Arts of Nepal are alleging that a "17th Century kneeling donor image stolen in the 1980s From a Buddhist vihara in Om Bahal, Kathmandu has been located in the collection of Barakat Gallery, UK". If that is confirmed, the gallery will no doubt be hastening to return it and provide investigating authorities of all the information they have on the chain of passage of this item to them so the traffickers can be identified and removed from the Market. This is why on acquiring stock, having provenance documentation and asking critical questions about where things came from and how they entered the market are vitally important. Different lighting in the two sets of photos obscures some distinguishing marks, but the old damage to the base of the plinth is the same. Notably, in entering somehow (how?) the antiquities market, damage has been done to the sculpture's hands and left thigh, at least. This is noteworthy in the context of the argument made by collectiors that by acquiring artefacts from brown-skinned people, they are "caring for and preserving [the world's] art".