RETURN OF A 16th-CENTURY BRONZE TO INDIA - press release

Under embargo until 16:00 on Tuesday 3 March 2026:

 

Cast bronze sculpture of a standing figure of a Buddha.

The Ashmolean has returned a 16th-century bronze to the Government of India following research into the object’s provenance and liaison with Indian authorities. The handover of the statue of Saint Tirumankai Alvar was marked at a celebration today at the High Commission of India in London in the presence of the Director of the Ashmolean, Dr Xa Sturgis, CBE, and Professor Mallica Kumbera Landrus, Head of the Museum’s Department of Eastern Art.

Dr Xa Sturgis says: ‘The Ashmolean is pleased to see this important object returned to India and we are grateful to the Indian authorities and scholars who have helped establish its provenance. The Museum and the University of Oxford are committed to ethical collections practices and continued research into our collections, their origins and their history.’

A spokesperson for the High Commission of India, London, says: ‘The High Commission of India to the United Kingdom warmly thanks the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford for its partnership and for its decision to return a 16th-century bronze icon of Saint Thirumankai Alvar to its original purpose as an object of worship. Enabling the return of this bronze statue to the Soundararaja Perumal temple in Tamil Nadu demonstrates the Museum’s strong leadership and commendable moral clarity. The Government and the people of India appreciate this action and effort, which is not merely restoration of an object of art, but the reunification of an icon of faith with its intended shrine, restoring memory, and enabling cultural continuity.’

About the object and claim for its return to India
The Ashmolean acquired the statue in good faith in 1967. According to the Sotheby’s catalogue, the bronze was sold by the private collector, Dr J R Belmont (1886–1981).  There is no information on how the bronze entered his collection.

In November 2019, an independent French scholar alerted the Museum to research indicating that a photograph of the bronze, taken in 1957 in the temple of Shri Soundarrajaperumal Kovil, Tamil Nadu, had been identified in the archives of the Institut Français de Pondichéry and the École française d’Extrême-Orient (IFP-EFEO). The scholar identified the bronze as one of a number of objects in collections in Europe and the United States recorded in the IFP-EFEO archive.

Although no formal claim had been made, the Ashmolean wrote to the Indian High Commission on 16 December 2019, requesting further information, including any police records, and indicating the Museum’s willingness to discuss the possible return of the object to India. The High Commissioner thanked the Ashmolean and the University for being proactive in the matter and confirmed that the information had been forwarded to Indian authorities.

On 11 February 2020 a temple executive officer filed a police report noting that a modern replica had replaced the original bronze. No previous police or news reports of a theft of this object had been recorded in India. The Indian High Commissioner then made a formal claim for the return of the bronze on 3 March 2020.

Further research in India was delayed by the pandemic but took place in July 2022, when the Ashmolean’s Professor Mallica Kumbera Landrus met officers of the Idol Wing and senior officials from the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), the French Institute, Shri Nagaswamy Temple (Icon Centre), and Shri Soundararaja Perumal Temple. At the request of the ASI, the Museum commissioned metal analysis of the bronze and submitted the results to inform a full report on its provenance.

Following the University of Oxford’s Procedures for the Return of Cultural Objects, the Ashmolean’s Board of Visitors supported the claim. The University Council approved the claim on 11 March 2024 and referred the case to the Charity Commission for England and Wales, which approved the transfer in December 2024. The Museum has since worked with the High Commission to arrange the return of the bronze to India.

 

ENDS

Contact details (not for publication)
Claire Parris
Strategic Communications Manager, University of Oxford Museums and Gardens
press.office@ashmus.ox.ac.uk / 07833 384 512

 

Press images

 

Notes to editors

  • The University of Oxford’s Procedures for the Return of Cultural Objects are available to view online.
     
  • Object details:
    Figure of the saint Tirumankai Alvar
    Tamil Nadu, south India, 16th-century
    Solid cast bronze, 57.5 x 23 x 21 cm
    Photo: Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
     
  • About the Ashmolean
    The Ashmolean is the University of Oxford’s museum of art and archaeology, founded in 1683. Our world-famous collections range from Egyptian mummies to contemporary art, telling human stories across cultures and across time.
    Admission: free
    Open: daily, 10:00-17:00