that s working to reclaim stolen statues. it s a mammoth task. they re tracing the histories of objects across hundreds of museums and private collections, from sydney to san francisco. leading the team is american lawyer brad gordon. we re tracking about 100 museums, and so we ve compiled, based on publicly available information, we ve compiled lots of information about cambodian pieces that are out there, so there s a couple of thousands pieces we are tracking. we know that these statues were taken out of the ground, and we know the cambodian government didn t give permission, so we re now asking the museums and private collectors, prove to us that you have a right to have these pieces. we re doing targeted excavations, so the excavations are coming up with remarkable finds, like arms and legs and pedestals, which, in some cases, using modern technology, we know that it s
this four armed vishnu sold for £209,000. but were the statues originally stolen? the cambodian royal family tried to stop the sale, but failed. now, brad is in london. the cambodian authorities are writing to major museums and the british government for help. i showed him the newsnight story from 1988. what was your gut reaction to it? amazing that the bbc had picked up on this in 88. we need to find this. this needs to come home. it s very important. so, we have the archival photographs from 1936, when the french inventoried it, and it was taken to the conservatory. the conservatory is a secret warehouse just outside angkor wat where statues are still stored for safekeeping today.
this khmer sculpture of a five headed shiva broke all records when it fetched a total of £319,000. brad and his team have tracked down the five headed shiva. it was sold at sotheby s to a private collector. in 1993, it was donated to the met museum in new york, where it s on display today. what would you like the met to do? we would love it to come back next week, you know. i think it s an important piece for the cambodians and it needs to come home. a spokesperson for the met told us: retrieving the statues would look good politically for the cambodian government ahead of an election year in 2023.
the latest information we have is that we ve been going through the files of materials handed over to us by the latchford family, and we found a photograph, and the photograph is an image that is identical to the statue that featured in the programme back in 1988, and so, we looked at that photograph and it actually had a label on it. latchford s photo is labelled with the name of one of his old customers. brad thinks this customer or the customer s family might still have the statue. we re not sure yet if they have it or not, but hopefully, in the next couple of weeks, we will find out. what chance do you have of getting that statue back? i think we have a very good chance, and especially now that we understand a lot more of the history, i think we should
that s just incredible. i mean, we ve got an elephant, we ve got a lion dog, we ve got lintus from angkor. no one s been granted access to see this complex in decades. brad thinks the four armed vishnu was stolen from here and sold on. so, where is the statue now? the latest information we have is that we ve been going through the files of materials handed over to us by the latchford family, and we found a photograph, and the photograph is an image that is identical to the statue that featured in the programme back in 1988, and so, we looked at that photograph and it actually had a label on it. latchford s photo is labelled with the name of one of his old customers. brad thinks this customer or the customer s family might still have the statue.