500-year-old sculpture of Hindu saint returns to India
A 500-year-old bronze sculpture of a Hindu poet and saint will soon be returned to India by Oxford University.
The Indian High Commission in the U.K made a claim for the bronze figure of Tirumankai Alvar four years ago.
The figure was part of items allegedly looted from a temple in India.
The Ashmolean Museum issued a statement saying the university council supported the return of the item in March.
According to them, they bought the statue at Sotheby's in 1967 but didn't know how collector Dr. J.R. Belmont had acquired it.
India Pride Project is an open-source intelligence organization that identifies and seeks to reclaim religious artifacts. Co-founder Vijay Kumar said worshippers have something to cheer.
“We saw COVID delays and procedural drama between British and Indian authorities on what should have been an open and shut case,” Kumar told the Times of India. “But we have been voicing our opinions on social media and we are almost there."
The Indian bronze will have to be approved by the Charity Commission, a regulatory body in England and Wales that decides if returning an art undermines the organisation’s charitable mission.
Many foreign governments including Nigeria, Ghana, and Egypt have made a move to retrieve their lost artefacts from British museums in recent times.
Oxford agreed two years ago to return nearly 100 Benin bronzes that were looted in 1987 to the Nigerian government. The artefacts were looted by British soldiers who attacked and occupied Benin City as Britain expanded its political and commercial influence in West Africa.
