A pair of statues from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Southeast Asian collection will be sent back to Cambodia, officials announced this week.  The “Kneeling Attendants” were smuggled out of the country during the violent Cambodian civil war of the 1970’s, and were donated to the museum in the late 1980’s.  “This is a case in which additional information regarding the Kneeling Attendants has led the museum to consider facts that were not known at the time of the acquisition and to take the action we are announcing today,” said Met director Thomas P. Campbell. (more…)

A set of classical Greek statues have been returned to the Greek state from Qatar, after a recent disagreement between Greek and Qatari officials.  While visiting the Middle Eastern nation, Greek Cultural Minister Costas Tzavaras noticed that the nude statues had been covered to avoid offending visiting females.  Refusing to uncover the statues, the Qatari government opted to return them to Greece. “In a society where there are certain laws and traditions authorities felt women would be scandalised by seeing such things, even on statues,” added an official present at the event. “The minister, of course, said while he totally respected local customs he couldn’t accept the antiquities not being exhibited in their natural state. They were great works of art and aesthetically it was wrong.” (more…)