A sacred Nepalese necklace linked to Kathmandu’s Taleju Temple has been part of a Chicago museum’s collection for decades – and the Nepalese government wants it back. Monday, ProPublica And Crain’s company in Chicago co-published a detailed report on the coin, alleging that the necklace and at least three other Nepali artifacts were donated to the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) from the Alsdorf collection were looted from the nation as it banned the export and trade of cultural property in 1956.
According to the inscription, King Pratap Malla (1624-1674) offered the necklace along with an assortment of precious offerings to the Hindu goddess Taleju at the Taleju temple in the courtyard of the Hanuman Dhoka palace complex for Malla royalty. In 1970, the Nepalese government possessed the necklace and other antiquities moved to Hanuman Dhoka Museum for better preservation, but the relic disappeared in 1976. That same year, James and Marilynn Alsdorf, collectors of South and Southeast Asian antiquities, acquired the necklace from Bruce Miller Antiquities in Sausalito, California , and lent it to the AIC until it was officially donated. in 2010. The necklace is currently exhibited in the Asian Art department of Gallery 141.
In the summer of 2021, Sweta Baniya, a Nepali assistant professor at Virginia Tech, encountered the necklace on display at AIC and was overcome with emotion and disbelief. Taleju Temple is only open to the public once a year, but the necklace was on display for all to see at all times. Banya caught on Twitter to share his thoughts, generating online traction and even catching the attention of the Nepali government, which launched the repatriation process in August.
After Baniya’s tweet made its rounds, Slok Gyawali of the Nepal Pride Project, a “voluntary movement to recover and repatriate stolen heritage from Nepal”, contacted the AIC collections department twice via email. and left several voicemails about the looted necklace, but he claims the museum never followed up.
“The AIC has been aware of this problem for years,” Gyawali lamented in a statement sent to Hyperallergic. “We repeatedly raised our concerns with them about the available evidence, but were repeatedly blocked and ignored. In my experience, when the spokesperson for the Art Institute says that they take “all requests for repatriation extremely seriously”, there is no reason for me to believe him.
According to ProPublica And Crain’s company in Chicago report, the Nepal Embassy in Washington, D.C. sent a repatriation request letter to AIC along with an archaeological report stating that the necklace was stolen and smuggled out of the temple in the 1970s, likely through the help from an on-the- ground accomplice.
“Nepal has officially forwarded its request to the Art Institute of Chicago for the repatriation of the artifact to Nepal so that this important historical and cultural artifact finds its place where it belongs,” a spokesperson for the Institute said. Embassy of Nepal. Hyperallergicquoting 1970s UNESCO Convention on the Prohibition and Prevention of the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property.
The museum responded a month later, saying it was taking the matter “very seriously” and would begin researching the necklace’s provenance. In May 2022, the AIC requested additional documentation from the Nepalese government indicating the necklace’s origins and ownership, to which a museum spokesperson said the government had yet to respond.
The Embassy of Nepal clarified to Hyperallergic that communications regarding the necklace take place only between the museum and the Nepalese Department of Archaeology. The ministry did not immediately respond to Hyperallergic requests for comments.
Nepal’s Department of Archeology said ProPublica And Crain’s company in Chicago that they are still looking for documents to support the repatriation claim, but the “irrefutable” proof of origin is literally inscribed on the artifact. “Victory to the Mother Goddess”, the inscription reads next to the king’s name.
Last June, the high priest of the temple of Taleju Uddhav Karmacharya discovered a parchment in the basement of the temple which documented the inventory of King Pratap Malla’s gifts to the goddess, including a necklace with a registration that matched that of the necklace at the AIC. Karmacharya handed the document over to the Nepalese government for further review, but there has apparently been no update since the museum’s correspondence in May 2022.
Asked about the scroll, Katie Rahn, a spokeswoman for the museum, said Hyperallergic via email that the AIC “stands ready to take cognizance of any additional information that the Nepalese government may share”.
Activists, art historians and other experts say the archeology department is at a resource disadvantage when it comes to repatriation requests from major museums like the AIC. However, the embassy said Hyperallergic that the department is “doing its job to the best of its abilities in this capacity”.
“In recent years, the government of Nepal has successfully repatriated many such artefacts from the United States,” the embassy spokesperson concluded.
