Art investigators have turned into modern-day Indiana Joneses, swinging through museums and, increasingly, the living rooms of private collectors looking for looted antiquities. The line between preserving and purloining the past has never been less clear.
The Nepalese conservationist Rabindra Puri, directing his own construction of a new Museum of Stolen Art in eastern Kathmandu speaks passionately about how he will feature replicas of stolen Nepalese antiquities, the originals having long ago been shipped overseas and since displayed in tourist attractions, art museums, or private residences, like hunting trophies.
Among the objects on view in the fake museum is a section of Stonehenge stolen by Nigeria as punishment for the British’s 1897 looting of the Kingdom of Benin.