Thirty-three stolen artifacts, worth over $20 million altogether, have finally made their way home three years after the matter was formally investigated by the feds.
Cover Image: A photo of the Lindemann’s Palm Beach home, wherein they showcased Khmer relics, as photographed for Architectural Digest’s 2008 issue. (Image Courtesy of The Cambodia Daily)
It’s the update we’ve all been waiting for…
On September 12, 2023 the Lindemann family (for whom Brown’s recently completed Lindemann Center for the Performing Arts was named) “voluntarily” agreed to return all 33 Cambodian artifacts from their massive private collection and will not face criminal charges. According to a press release from the United States Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York, the selection of returned antiquities includes 10th-century statues stolen from Koh Ker—the capital of the Khmer kingdom—including those of Dhrishtadyumna, Ardhanarishvara, and Anantashayana Vishnu, and “six heads of devas (angels) and asuras (demons)” and a kneeling figure that were removed from the gates and temples at Angkor Wat. The release also notes that the DOJ has successfully returned these statues, along with 32 others, to Cambodia since antiquities kingpin Douglas Latchford was indicted in 2019.
Statue of Dhrishtadyumna, stolen from Prasat Chen in Koh Ker (Image Courtesy of the US Department of Justice)
Daniel Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, asserts:
For decades, Cambodia suffered at the hands of unscrupulous art dealers and looters who trafficked cultural treasures to the American art market. This historic agreement sets a framework for the return of cultural patrimony in support of the Memorandum of Understanding between the United States and Cambodia. We thank the Lindemann family for their cooperation and assistance in the repatriation of the antiquities to Cambodia.
The majority of these statues that have made their way into collectors’ private collections and museum catalogs were stolen from Cambodia between 1975-1979 and throughout the 1990s, as the regime of the Khmer Rouge contributed to a period of extreme conflict and civil war. Casual looters would work with antiquities traffickers such as Latchford, smuggling them from various religious and archaeological sites to the Thai border where they were then put for sale in various international markets and sold to museums, auction houses, and private collectors. One of these looters, the Iron Princess, admitted to having “systematically dismantle[d] one of Cambodia's biggest temple complexes” in the 1990s. She recalls that they “‘sold to whoever paid the most.’” Red Horse was another looter-turned-government-witnesses interviewed by the BBC. He took the interviewers to a temple complex from where he and “his gang removed a large male deity statue in the 1970s,” which is currently in the British Museum’s catalog.
The Cambodian government has struggled with the looting of antiquities for decades. To Cambodians, Celia Hatton writes that “a statue can contain the soul of a king, a god or maybe an ancestor.” It is of utmost importance, therefore, that all the stolen statues are returned to their rightful homes. In October 2021, the Cambodian government demanded that the MET return 45 objects from their collection, citing evidence that they too had been looted. The British Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum have both been asked to return more than 100 stolen antiquities. Only recently has the Cambodian government successfully received all of Latchford’s estimated $50 million collection of Khmer statues and other artifacts. This repatriation effort has also made its way into the US courts. There are a handful of lawsuits, filed in the Southern District of New York, that deal with the illegal trafficking of Cambodian cultural heritage and forfeiture actions. A few of them include United States v. A Late 12th Century Khmer Sandstone Sculpture Depicting Standing Prajnaparamita, et al., 21 Civ. 9217, United States v. A Late 12th Century Bayon-Style Sandstone Sculpture Depicting Eight-Armed Avalokiteshvara, 22 Civ. 229, United States v. A 10th Century Cambodian Sandstone Sculpture, 12 Civ. 2600, and United States v. A 10th Century Cambodian Sandstone Sculpture Depicting Skanda on a Peacock, 21 Civ. 6065. The Lindemanns’ returning of these antiquities, therefore, is just one small step forward in the overall struggle.
A trio of heads removed from the gates to Angkor Thom in Angkor Wat (Image Courtesy of the US Department of Justice)
The Lindemanns have had a long history both with Cambodian antiquities and with Douglas Latchford. In 2008, pictures of their home in Palm Beach, Florida went viral and the Cambodian government identified more than 20 statues that they suspected were looted. In 2021, Sloan Lindemann Barnett and her husband Roger Barnett’s mansion in San Francisco (dubbed the most beautiful mansion in America) was featured on the cover of Architectural Digest’s January 2021 issue. Mysteriously, there were several empty plinths included in the shots of sprawling tiles, towering palms, and pristine white onyx walls. Investigations by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) later revealed that these photos had been photoshopped. While the Lindemanns were not being investigated for wrongdoings, neither Lindemann Barnett nor her husband could be reached for comment. An AD spokesperson said they airbrushed the photos because they were part of an “unresolved publication rights around select artworks.” What’s more, the Cambodian government also identified George Lindemann and his wife, Frayda, traveling to Cambodia in the 1990s to meet with Latchford from files they acquired from Latchford’s computer. Latchford and Lindemann also had extensive communications.
Recently, the Lindemann family’s private dealings were the subject of an even greater controversy. In March of this year, the Alliance of Rhode Island Southeast Asians for Education (ARISE) highlighted the family’s part in the looting of these antiquities. In a statement to the Rhode Island Current, Chanda Womack, ARISE’s executive director, explained that “The Lindemann family has a legacy, a legacy, of buying stolen artifacts of Cambodia. They have millions of dollars of artifacts from Cambodia that they refuse to return.” Questions about Brown’s decision to name the Performing Arts Center after this family arose when Mu Sochua, an exiled Cambodian politician, said “anybody who believes in justice cannot just accept this.” On March 14, 2023, ARISE posted a press release through upriseri.com where they condemned the university’s decision and highlighted specific antiquities, such as of the Hindu deity Vishnu, that were in their collection.
The altered photo of Lindemann Barnett’s house as published on AD’s website with empty pedestals where the statues were placed. (Image Courtesy of the Washington Post)
Relating to the September 11 decision, Womack wrote in an email to the Rhode Island Current, “the return of Cambodia’s belongings is meaningful beyond words.” Many echoed her sentiment, including Brian Clark, Brown’s spokesperson, who said “the University respects the Lindemann family for making a decision concerning this matter.” In an interview with Tom Mashberg, Brown alumn and NYT writer, Phoeurng Sackona, Cambodia’s minister of culture and fine arts, said, “it pleases the Cambodian government that the Lindemann family, in possession of these national treasures, knowing they were wrongfully possessed, have duly and voluntarily returned them to their rightful owners.”
As the Smithsonian reports, “this illicit international market has contributed to the destruction of museums and monuments and has caused the irreparable loss of archaeological remains.” The protection, preservation, and repatriation of these vital artifacts, therefore, must be prioritized at all times. Arguments of “our museum is safer to preserve it” or “no one will go to X country to see them” do not matter in the fight for repatriation. This is a matter of respect, of diligence, of justice. The only way we can learn more about our history through art is if our artifacts are in their rightful homes: it’s illogical and problematic, for example, to learn about Argentina’s history through art kept in the British Museum. We must call upon our governments to do the right thing and advocate for museums and private collectors to return the stolen, looted works that they hide in their collections. While it came a little too late, the Lindemanns’ made the right decision. For as Williams and Sackona said, they set a precedent for other families, auction houses, and museums worldwide who keep, in their collections, these artifacts—pieces of Cambodia’s identity and soul.
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