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Dallas Museum of Art to Return Sacred Statue to Nepal
The museum is returning the sculpture, which was looted from a temple in the 1980s. The move comes after researchers raised concerns about its provenance.
This sacred stele of Lakshmi-Narayana was taken in 1984. It is now going to be returned to Nepal.Credit.Dallas Museum of Art
By Zachary Small
March 4, 2021
A stone sculpture representing a Hindu deity is making its way back to Nepal nearly 40 years after it disappeared from a temple shrine and ended up in the Dallas Museum of Art.
For more than eight centuries, the sacred stele of Lakshmi-Narayana, a manifestation of the Hindu deities Vishnu and Lakshmi, watched over devotees in the Nepalese city of Patan until it suddenly disappeared, stolen by looters in 1984. Six years later, the eight-armed figure reappeared at auction at Sotheby’s, selling to a collector, who then lent it to the Dallas museum.