Dancing Shiva: Brandis slams National Gallery of Australia over $5m purchase of Indian artefact

Updated

The Attorney-General and the Minister for the Arts, George Brandis, has strongly criticised the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) for its decision in 2008 to buy a $5 million Indian artefact, the Shiva Nataraja, from disgraced art dealer Subhash Kapoor.

Senator Brandis was commenting on a leaked internal review from the NGA that has been obtained by the ABC's Four Corners program.

Speaking exclusively to Four Corners, Senator Brandis said: "Plainly what that report revealed is that the due diligence standards of the NGA, which are very high - in fact are world's best practice - were not in my view sufficiently complied with on this particular occasion."

"The decision to acquire the object ... came in my view at a time when there was a sufficient level of doubt about the provenance of the object that the decision to recommend to the council the acquisition of the object at that time was incautious," he said.

The Attorney-General's comments directly contradict assurances made by the gallery's director, Ron Radford, and by the current chairman of the NGA's council, Allan Myers, endorsing the level of due diligence carried out by the gallery.

"As best I can judge, it was thorough, diligent and exhaustive," Mr Myers told Four Corners.

"It's like many things; one goes through a process and at the end of that process one has to reach a judgement."

And in a recent interview with the ABC, Mr Radford said: "Negotiations went on for a year as we were testing whether it had been stolen from anywhere or its provenance and we were checking all of that with great thoroughness."

Expert denies advising gallery to buy Shiva

However, evidence is mounting that the Shiva was stolen from a temple in the southern Indian region of Tamil Nadu.

Highly damaging, fresh revelations have been made on Four Corners, including that the sole expert who, the NGA says, it consulted when deciding whether or not to purchase the Shiva, categorically denies giving advice on the purchase to the NGA.

For months, the NGA has refused to reveal the identity of the expert, but Four Corners has now named him as Dr Ramachandran Nagaswamy, an acknowledged expert in Chola bronzes.

Mr Myers told Four Corners Dr Nagaswamy had told the NGA the Shiva they were hoping to buy was "a piece of outstanding quality. He knew of no reason to suspect its provenance".

But Dr Nagaswamy flatly denies this. He rejects the gallery's claim he spoke to the senior curator of Asian art, Robyn Maxwell, or that he offered any advice to the gallery to buy the object.

Four Corners has established that no formal report was written by Dr Nagaswamy supporting the decision to buy the sculpture.

The NGA says it wrote an email to Dr Nagaswamy on January 31, 2008, and, after receiving no response, followed that with a further email on February 6, 2008.

The gallery says it received an email back the same day, with a number to contact Dr Nagaswamy on, and that he was finally reached at a telephone number in Delhi.

During that conversation, between Ms Maxwell and Dr Nagaswamy, Four Corners has been told, his advice on the proposed purchase of the Shiva was to "go for it".

But this is emphatically denied by Dr Nagaswamy. He has told Four Corners the email response to Ms Maxwell, which was written on February 6, 2008, came from his son Mohan who lives in Miami, and that he himself has "absolutely no recollection" of having a telephone conversation in Delhi or anywhere else, with Ms Maxwell.

He denies ever recommending the gallery purchase the Shiva.

Dr Nagaswamy says his own rules on checking the provenance of an object and recommending its purchase are strict.

"We have always authorised committees consisting of more than three experts to examine all aspects and their views are properly recorded and attested by their signatures before further actions. I know my rules well and do not deviate," he told the ABC.

The NGA's internal review, obtained exclusively by Four Corners, contains further revelations about the checks which were made by the gallery, and the provenance it relied on in purchasing 21 other items from Kapoor.

Several of the items list the previous owners as a woman, Raj Mehgoub, and her husband, Abdulla Mehgoub.

But the documents naming them as former owners of the Shiva, and of another sculpture in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, were almost certainly faked.

Four of the objects are listed as previously belonging to a woman called Selina Mohamed, who is the former girlfriend of Kapoor and who has been charged in New York with four counts of criminal possession of stolen property and one count of conspiracy.

One of the items bought by the National Gallery from Kapoor in 2003 was a Seated Gina sculpture, dating from the 12th century.

At the time, the gallery was given a letter of provenance signed by Raj Mehgoub.

But in its confidential internal review, the gallery now says it believes the sculpture was bought by Kapoor at a Christie's auction in London in 2002.

It says the Christie's sale "supports the possibility that the sculpture was legitimately acquired", but acknowledges that "the information suggests the letter signed by Mr Mehgoub was fraudulent".

Documentation on Shiva purchase 'at best, thin'

The Attorney-General's comments today relate to confidential written legal advice from cultural heritage lawyer Shane Simpson, of Simpsons Solicitors, on the proposed purchase of the Dancing Shiva.

The advice was delivered to the NGA on January 13, 2008, just six weeks before the $5 million purchase was approved by the council of the gallery.

In answering the question of whether legal title was established, Mr Simpson wrote: "On the evidence presented so far, this cannot be confirmed. The available evidence is minimal and inadequate investigations have been carried out. There needs to be much deeper enquiry made before title can be confirmed."

Mr Simpson's report was damning. In relation to the purchase of the Shiva, he said: "The documentation is, at best, thin."

"When the purchase price is high, the gallery must be aware that there is an inherent risk in the purchase," he warned.

"There is no evidence that provides any clue as to the origin of the object."

The documentation is, at best, thin.... There is no evidence that provides any clue as to the origin of the object. Shane Simpson's report on the proposed purchase of the Shiva

He told the gallery there were four likely possibilities, one of which was that "it was stolen from the original source (for example, a temple)".

"How did the Shiva originally come to the market? If it was excavated, was it legally excavated? If it came from a temple ... well, you get the idea," he added.

"I am unable to determine whether or not the object was legally or illegally exported from India.

"The absence of official documentation suggests that the object was exported without compliance with that legislation."

Mr Simpson advised the gallery "with a high degree of certainty" that "there could be no successful claim made on the basis of the means of export of the work from India".

"That is not to say that the Indian government could not make submissions to the Australian Government for the return of the work - simply that it would have no right to seek legal redress pursuant to the UNESCO Convention, the Indian legislation or the Protection of Movable Cultural Heritage Act 1986," he said.

But he added: "If there are problems in respect of any of the above, what is the likelihood that the NGA would face highly public restitution proceedings?"

As revealed on Four Corners, this is now occurring.

The Indian High Commission has lodged a formal request with the Attorney-General's Department asking for the Shiva to be returned to India, where Kapoor is in prison awaiting trial on charges relating to the smuggling of looted artefacts.

Police in India have told Four Corners they want the Shiva returned to be presented as material evidence at his trial.

"This is a matter that will be a subject of discussion," Senator Brandis said.

"I've raised it with my colleague, Julie Bishop, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and it will be a matter of discussion between the governments."

Four Corners understands discussions with the NGA are being held this week.

Topics: library-museum-and-gallery, arts-and-entertainment, visual-art, law-crime-and-justice, corruption, fraud-and-corporate-crime, canberra-2600, australia, india, asia

First posted