A 12th century Nepali sculpture that has regularly been on display at the Art Institute of Chicago is being returned to its native country — after new research found that the object had originally been stolen, the museum said Monday.
The sacred sculpture, “Buddha Sheltered by the Serpent King Muchalinda,” measures about 17.5 inches by 13 inches and was carved from schist, a dark metamorphic rock.
As part of “ongoing research into the provenance of its collection,” researchers discovered that the sculpture had been stolen from Guita Bahi in the Kathmandu Valley, an Art Institute statement said. The institute then shared its findings with Embassy of Nepal in Washington.
The sculpture is now in the hands of the Nepali government, said Jacques Schuhmacher, executive director of the institute’s Provenance Research, adding it will eventually return to its place of origin, but that timing has not been confirmed.
“This return reflects the importance of provenance research, as well as the Art Institute’s proactive outreach and collaboration with countries and communities,” Schuhmacher said in the museum’s announcement. “We are grateful to work in partnership with our colleagues from Nepal to return this object to its place of origin, and to collaborate and learn from each other into the future.”
The sculpture depicts a “powerful story of divine intervention and protection: During a sudden and violent storm, the serpent king Muchalinda rose to form a protective cave around the Buddha, permitting him to remain in deep mediation,” according to the Art Institute.
In recent decades, intense new pressure on institutions to do a better job of sourcing their acquisitions and knowing how existing holdings came to be in their collections has come from multiple sources.
They include families whose artworks were stolen or sold under duress to the Nazis in World War II; countries in Asia or South America where objects were looted from archaeological sites and sold on the black market, and ndigenous tribes who lost sacred objects generations ago.