Australia agreed to return to the Indian government illegally exported from that country sculpture: bronze dancing Shiva and Shiva stone. Sculpture in Australia through the dealer smuggler Subhash Kapoor

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott during his official visit to India personally will return to his homeland two of the most valuable artifact settled in Australia through the black market of antiquities. It is about a 900-year-old bronze statue of the dancing Shiva and the stone statue of Lord Shiva with bull Nandi@

Both sculptures have passed through the hands of criminal art dealer Subhash Kapoor (Subhash Kapoor), who is accused of organizing a smuggling network for the sale of Indian antiquities with a turnover up to 100 million dollars. The dealer was arrested in 2011 and sent to India. 2012 new York police discovered a huge cache of stolen artifacts, which belonged to the Kapoor. But many items had already managed to return to private and public collections — and not just in America. Thus, a bronze dancing Shiva (Nataraja) for 5.6 million dollars was bought from the dealer Kapoor National gallery of Australia. A stone statue of Shiva for 300 thousand dollars was purchased by the Art gallery of New South Wales in Sidney@

Despite the fact that Subhash Kapoor was exposed in 2011, Australia until November 2013 refused to acknowledge the existence of "credible evidence" that the exhibits in the collections of galleries stolen. In December 2013, former assistant Kapoor admitted at trial of possession of stolen property and listed some illegally exported objects, among which was a statue of the dancing Shiva from the National gallery of Australia. And only after that the Australian authorities agreed to consider the issue of return artefacto@

Material was prepared by Maria Onuchin, AI

Источники: artnet.com, theguardian.com, artinvestment.ru