Khmer Art Overseas:
It’s very noticeable that recent auctions by the two leading auction houses in the world, Christie’s and Sotheby’s, are hosting considerably fewer Khmer antiquities than in previous years. The global spotlight is on Khmer art in the international media - via the Pandora Papers, Douglas Latchford, the Met Museum, etc - and the pressure is on to repatriate stolen works of art back to their country of origin. That may be giving the larger auction houses, art dealers and private collectors cold feet in advertising their antiquities for sale. However, other smaller auction houses such as Galerie Zacke, Kollers, Bonhams and Lampertz continue to hold regular on-line auctions featuring Khmer art. That said, Sotheby’s have an Arts d'Asie auction coming up on 15 June in Paris and tucked away in their catalogue of 241 items, are 4 Khmer art pieces from private collections, including a headless Vishnu expected to raise more than 50K Euros. Presumably, Sotheby’s are comfortable with the legal provenance of these artworks, despite the industrial-scale looting that has befallen Cambodia since the 1960s.
