Pathways to the museum: tracing the acquisition history of objects in the BM’s Cambodia collection

This case study was considered as part of a broader provenancing project. Read the summary and other case studies on the project page.

This report summarises research undertaken to trace the ownership history and transfer of certain objects in the BM’s Cambodia collection. I have focused on individual objects and groups of objects about which BM records provide some information on at least two previous owners or sellers, and initially on objects that entered the collection around or after Cambodia’s ratification of the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. Ratification of the 1970 Convention was an effort to address the ongoing problem of looting of sacred ‘artworks’ from temples, archaeological sites, and, later, from museums, which had begun, in modern terms and large-scale, during the colonial period and then expanded amidst the chaos of the civil war and genocide.

Against this backdrop of looting, and the mixing of ‘legally’ and ‘illegally’ removed objects on a market whose characterisation as ‘legitimate’ has been called into question (Mackenzie and Yates 2017), it seems appropriate in the context of Cambodian cultural objects to take up Hicks’ call to “turn [the] tired tropes of ‘object biographies’ and ‘relational entanglements’ inside-out by exposing what was taken, what was lost” (2021, 153). Thus, my aim was to try to trace the objects’ journeys to the museum through collectors, in order to establish what, if anything, can be learnt of the circumstances of their removal from Cambodia, and what else has been collected/looted. The results have included some dead ends and, more often than not, more questions. The examples considered here have been chosen because of the potential for further research and for the questions they raise about networks and connections between dealers and collectors, but also about collecting practices during both the colonial and post-colonial periods.

---

Standing male figure, sandstone, BM 1976,1101.1

This is the sandstone statue, missing its head, hands, and feet, that is discussed in Ing’s case study. The information provided by the BM’s online collection database about this statue is brief. It is described as follows: “Figure (standing male figure). Made of sandstone. Carved.” The acquisition notes state that it was purchased by the BM from Eskenazi Ltd, a London-based dealer, primarily of Chinese art.¹

More information is found in the BM archives. The minutes of the September 1976 meeting of the trustees record discussion around the recommendation of the purchase of this statue. Here it is described in similar terms, as “an 11^th century, pale green sandstone four-armed standing male figure […] probably representing the god Vishnu […]”(British Museum Minutes of the Meetings of the Board of Trustees, Vol. 4, 25 September 1976, p. 2164). The arguments made to persuade the trustees to sanction the purchase emphasise the “outstanding quality” of the statue and the presence of only one other statue (in the Sainsbury Collection) in this particular style in the UK at the time (British Museum Minutes of the Meetings of the Board of Trustees, Vol. 4, 25 September 1976, p. 2164).² It seems that no other information about provenance was provided to the trustees at this point, as the minutes record the trustees requesting the relevant curator “to seek the co-operation of the dealer in establishing the provenance of the object so far as possible.” This possibly reflects an awareness of the entry into force of the 1970 UNESCO Convention in Cambodia.

Following the trustees’ request, further information was provided by Eskenazi, and recorded in the minutes of the 30 October 1976 meeting of the trustees. The curator reported that Eskenazi acquired the sculpture from Spink & Son Ltd³ for an exhibition in March 1972, while Spink had purchased the sculpture from a Zurich collector, who had in turn acquired it from “an old French colonial family” (British Museum Minutes of the Meetings of the Board of Trustees, Vol. 4, 30 October 1976, p. 2192). On that basis, the curator felt confident that the sculpture had not been looted or illegally exported from Cambodia, and the purchase was sanctioned by the trustees. Records or evidence of the previous purchases do not seem to have been provided or requested.

Locating the statue with Eskenazi and identifying any information provided in the context of the exhibition mentioned above was the next step in researching its ownership history. It appears in the catalogue published by Eskenazi to accompany the 1972 exhibition (Eskenazi 1972, cat. no. 70). A full-page A4 photograph of the statue is included, with a brief description on the facing page: “Sculpture of Vishnu. Khmer, 11^th century. Height: 102 cm. Grey sandstone sculpture of a standing male figure, probably Vishnu, in the style of Baphuon.” No provenance information is provided, consistent with the presentation of information about other objects in the exhibition. It is notable that, while the BM’s online record for this piece generally corresponds to the information provided by Eskenazi, and reported by the curator to the trustees, the identification of the figure as “probably Vishnu” is omitted. This seems to reflect the fact that, without its head and hands (and any attributes held in the hands that might indicate its identity), it is difficult to establish even a likely or probable identity of the figure. As Ing notes in her case study, although the statue’s four arms make it possible that the figure represented is Vishnu, there is nothing to indicate that it could not be a representation of the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara. This raises the question as to why Eskenazi thought it more likely than not that the figure was a Vishnu. Was it felt that a positive attribution would increase the commercial value of the piece? Alternatively, did they have some other information, for example from Spink, that suggested this?

Within the scope of this project, the presence of the statue with Spink could not be confirmed. The statue does not appear in issues of Octagon (a periodical published by Spink, and in which all objects illustrated are expressed as being for sale) for the period from 1966 to 1972, nor is it published in a catalogue for a Spink exhibition in 1970 on ‘Indian Influence on art in Southeast Asia’.⁴ However, it is possible that it appears in a publication not found during this research, or that it simply was not published by Spink. In any case, this research has not been able to ascertain the date of transfer 1) from Spink by Eskenazi or 2) from the Zurich collector by Spink. For the moment, this leaves open the possibility which Ing proposes in her case study that the statue was placed with Spink by Latchford and that the Zurich collector and French colonial family were part of falsified provenance information provided by Latchford.

---

Group of bronze figures, BM 1999,1006.1-7 and 2003,1010.1

This group of objects consists mostly of relatively small (around 12 cm) bronze figures, including Buddha images and representations of Hindu and Buddhist deities. They were all purchased by the BM from Dr Henry Ginsburg (seven of them in 1999, and the final piece in 2003), and are described as having been acquired by him at a Sotheby’s auction of part of the collection of Natasha Eilenberg. (The date of the auction is not given on the BM’s online database but we were able to confirm this through the relevant sale catalogue as 26 March 1998 – see below.) The BM’s online records state that these objects were collected by Natasha and Samuel Eilenberg in Cambodia during the 1950s and 1960s. (This is in some respects inconsistent with the information provided in the relevant Sotheby’s sale catalogue, as discussed below.)

The Eilenbergs amassed a vast collection of objects from South and Southeast Asia, and made several trips to the regions during the 1950s and 1960s. In his introduction to a catalogue accompanying an exhibition of Samuel Eilenberg’s collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the then curator of Indian and Southeast Asian art, Martin Lerner, described Samuel Eilenberg as a “formidable connoisseur-collector, with an obvious command of his subject”, who had been a “pioneer” in the field of collecting of Asian art (Lerner and Kossak 1991, 10). Natasha Eilenberg’s interest in the area can be seen, for example, in her involvement in the editing and translating of an English edition of Jean Boisselier’s Tendances de l’art khmer, published in 1989, and her publication in 2008 of a volume of edited and translated articles by Boisselier. In his preface, Boisselier thanked Eilenberg for her contribution to the appendices, including a glossary and timeline, the intention of which was “to make the Tendances more accessible to readers who have not necessarily studied the history of Khmer art” (Boisselier 1989, 11). Lerner underlined the importance of the Eilenberg collection in the Asian art world (Lerner and Kossak 1991, 10):

“From that first Asia Society exhibition [‘Masterpieces of Asian Art in American Collections,’ held at the Asia Society galleries in 1960 and to which Samuel Eilenberg lent five Indian and Southeast Asian sculptures] until today, there have been very few significant exhibitions of Indian and Southeast Asian art in which the Eilenberg collection was not represented.”

When the Eilenbergs divorced in 1969, their collection was divided between them. A number of Natasha’s objects have appeared at auction, and have ended up in museum collections in the US, as well as at the BM. For example, a gold plaque from Thailand and depicting a seated ascetic was sold at the same 1998 Sotheby’s auction as the BM pieces, and later donated to the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. After her death in 2012, 20 pieces from Natasha’s collection were put up for sale at Bonhams New York, including a 7^th/8^th century bronze figure of the Buddha from Thailand. Samuel Eilenberg made bequests to a wide range of institutions in the US, UK, and Israel, including a substantial donation to the Met (more than 400 objects in 1987), which also purchased 24 sculptures that he had donated to Columbia University.

A useful source for gaining an overview of the full extent of the Eilenberg collection, and for provenance research on the collection, is the Eilenberg archive at Columbia University, where Samuel Eilenberg was a professor of mathematics. The archive contains correspondence relating to Samuel Eilenberg’s donations and loans of objects, correspondence with art dealers, and invoices, as well as legal documents related to the couple’s divorce, including inventories of the art collection. It was not possible to access the archive for this research project but the description of the archive on the University’s website provides a number of insights and suggestions as to where answers might be found, both in relation to the BM pieces and more generally in relation to possible overlaps between the Eilenbergs’ sources of objects and illicit trade networks.

• One of the folders in the archive contains correspondence with Spink & Son, from 1959-1984. It would be useful to know which objects came through Spink, possibly with connections to Latchford.
• There are also folders labelled “Bangkok, 1965-1977” and “Asia, 1957-1986” (but not a separate folder relating to Cambodia). It can be assumed that most of the Khmer objects came through Bangkok, and it would be useful to know which dealers the Eilenbergs bought from there.
• The description of a folder containing correspondence with the University of Missouri Museum, to which Eilenberg made gifts over a number of years, mentions a 1987 letter from the director of the museum in which he declines the offer of certain gifts, because of uncertainty around “questions of provenance [and about] the circumstances of export and import.” This raises questions as to the reasons for the apparent change in stance of the museum (around 15 years after Cambodia’s ratification of the 1970 UNESCO Convention), and as to whether there were any particular ‘red flags’ around the objects that were refused, and whether these might be present in the case of other objects documented in the archive.  

The archive might also provide more information as to the provenance of the BM’s Eilenberg objects, to add to the limited information published in the catalogue accompanying the auction at Sotheby’s New York on 26 March 1998, at which Henry Ginsburg purchased the BM’s Eilenberg objects. This is summarised in the table below.

BM number	BM object name/description	Sotheby’s sale lot number and information
1999,1006.1	Cast bronze figure of a standing deity, possibly Vishnu in an unusual form	Lot 235 – A Khmer bronze figure of Vishnu, Bayon, circa 13th century; acquired in 1957
1999,1006.2	Cast bronze figure of standing Prajñāparamitā with the Buddha Amitabha in her headdress	Lot 236 – A Khmer bronze figure of Prajnaparamita, Bayon, late 12th/early 13th century; acquired in 1963
1999,1006.3	Cast bronze figure depicting a four-armed male figure (deity), squatting down on a shallow circular pedestal	Lot 246 – A Khmer bronze figure of a male tantric divinity, circa 12th/13th century; acquired prior to 1969
1999,1006.4	Cast bronze figure of standing four-armed Viṣṇu	Lot 247 – A Khmer Lopburi bronze figure of Vishnu, circa 13th century; acquired in 1963
1999,1006.5	Cast bronze figure of four-armed Viṣṇu standing atop Garuḍa	Lot 248 – A Khmer bronze figure of Vishnu on Garuda, Baphuon, second half of the 11th century; acquired in 1957
1999,1006.6	Cast bronze kneeling male figure, probably Vishvakarma, the celestial architect	Lot 249 – A Khmer bronze figure of Indra, Bayon, late 12th/early 13th century; acquired prior to 1969
1999,1006.7	Cast bronze figure of a crowned and bejeweled dakini, a female deity in Tantric traditions, dancing upon a corpse	Lot 258 – A bronze figure of Cauri, Thailand, circa 12th/13th century; the yogini in a dancing pose on the corpse of the god Indra; Provenance: Pan-Asian Collection
2003,1010.1	Cast bronze sculpture of the crowned and jewelled Buddha, depicted standing with both hands held in abhayamudra, the gesture of reassurance	Lot 254 – A Khmer Lopburi bronze figure of Adorned Buddha, 12th/13th century [no acquisition date given]

The information on four of the eight objects gives a specific year of acquisition. This might be because there are supporting documents, possibly amongst the papers in the archive, that record or confirm the acquisition date. For the two objects for which acquisition by the Eilenbergs is said to have occurred “prior to 1969”, this seems to imply that they were purchased before the couple’s divorce but perhaps that Natasha Eilenberg was unable to recall or locate evidence of the specific date or year. No indication of acquisition date is given in relation to the other two objects (BM 1999,1006.7 and 2003,1010.1), suggesting that they might have been purchased separately by Natasha after 1969. It should be noted that neither the information provided in the Sotheby’s catalogue nor the outline information about the Eilenberg papers confirms or supports the BM’s statement (on its online database) that all of these objects were acquired “in” Cambodia. (Although the descriptions of BM 1999,1006.7 and 2003,1010.1 in the Sotheby’s catalogue imply that they were made in or are from modern-day Thailand, they have been included in our project as Khmer objects possibly originating from Cambodia.)

The bronze dakini figure (BM 1999,1006.7) is particularly interesting in that the provenance information given relates only to previous ownership, as part of the so-called Pan-Asian Collection, without any reference to dates of acquisition either by Natasha/the Eilenbergs or Christian Humann, who assembled the Pan-Asian Collection. That name was given to the collection by 1977 at the latest, when an exhibition titled ‘The Sensuous Immortals: a selection of sculptures from the Pan-Asian Collection’ was held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), curated by Pratapaditya Pal, then LACMA’s head of Indian and Islamic Art. When Humann died in 1981, his collection was acquired by the art dealer Robert Ellsworth (1929-2014). Even after 1981, when objects were sold by Ellsworth, auction catalogues still used the “Pan-Asian Collection” tag (Pal 2021), a practice which served to enhance the reputation, and therefore commercial value, of the relevant objects. Thus, the reference to the collection in respect of the bronze dakini does not help in giving an indication as to whether the piece was purchased by Natasha Eilenberg before or after 1981, but does imply a cut-off date of 1981 as the latest date by which the objects left Cambodia (or Thailand).

As for the history of the Pan-Asian Collection itself, Pratapaditya Pal has stated that it was formed over a period of about 20 years, from around 1960 to 1980 (Pal 2021). It comprised “over a thousand objects spanning almost two millennia”, including sculpture in various media and paintings. Humann is said to have bought his objects from a number of different sources, including from what Pal called “hippy” dealers who sold Tibetan and Nepalese sculpture and objects in particular. He seems to have been unconcerned by their (lack of) standing in the ‘art world’ – Pal described Humann as an “equal opportunity buyer” (Pal 2021) – and by questions of provenance. In relation to the Southeast Asian objects in the collection, it should be noted that Humann apparently had a close relationship with the Denver Art Museum because of friendships with Mary Lanius, the then curator of Asian art, and Emma Bunker, a friend and associate of Douglas Latchford (Pal 2021; Tabachnik 2022a, 2022b). This possible connection with Latchford would seem to provide grounds for scrutiny of the provenance of Southeast Asian objects formerly in the Pan-Asian collection, but this could equally be extended, on the basis of the social networks that seem to have played such a significant role in the world of Southeast Asian art collecting, to the Eilenberg collection as well: Latchford was known to have had a close relationship with Martin Lerner at the Met, while Lerner in turn was a long-time acquaintance of Samuel Eilenberg (Mashberg and Bowley 2022; Lerner and Kossak 1991).

---

Sandstone sculptures, BM 2002,0330.1-3

This group of objects includes a relief of a standing apsara, the head and torso of a standing Buddha image, and the torso and legs of a standing male figure, all carved in sandstone. The first was purchased from Dr Henry Ginsburg, while the other two are listed in the BM’s online database as having been given by him to the BM. The online collections database provides details of the previous owner(s), stating that the pieces were “[s]old by the descendants of Professor Bernard, an archaeologist working in Cambodia from 1920-24, at Christie’s Amsterdam in November 2001”. The invoice (dated 15 January 2002) from Henry Ginsburg’s company, Hentell Ltd, in respect of 2002,0330.1 (the standing apsara) also describes Professor Bernard as an “archaeologist working in Cambodia in 1920-1924” (British Museum Archives, Object File re. 2002,0330.1 – Invoice dated 15 January 2002). A BM internal memorandum dated 6 February 2002 and relating to the acquisition of 2002,0330.1 does not use the word ‘archaeologist’ in respect of Professor Bernard, however, and instead simply states that he was “a member of a French expedition to Cambodia between 1920 and 1924” (British Museum Archives, Object File re. 2002,0330.1 – Memorandum dated 6 February 2002). This memorandum refers to an attached ‘Certificat de provenance,’ provided in respect of a sale of “similar material” (also at Christie’s Amsterdam) in May 2001. That document was presumably provided to the BM by Henry Ginsburg, but it is not clear whether he obtained it after purchasing lots in the May 2001 auction or separately in advance of the November 2001 auction. The ‘Certificat de provenance’ relates to two of the objects sold in the May 2001 Christie’s Amsterdam sale and states that they both belonged to the collection of a Dr Bernard, who had inherited the collection from his father, Professor Bernard, who was a member of the 1920-1924 French expedition to Cambodia (British Museum Archives, Object File re. 2002,0330.1 – Certificat de Provenance dated 3 October 2001).

The two main questions in respect of these objects were: 1) could more details of the expedition be found, in order to in turn identify and find out more about Professor Bernard, and 2) could the “similar material” sold earlier in the same year as the BM pieces be identified, in order to give a clearer picture of the objects collected by Bernard?

The second question proved easier to answer, thanks to the availability of the relevant auction catalogues and the publication of sales results on the Christie’s website. The BM pieces were lots 194, 200 and 202 in the sale at Christie’s Amsterdam on 21 November 2001. The Christie’s catalogue states that “Lots 194-204 were acquired by the present owner’s father-in-law in Cambodia in the mid-1920s”, but does not mention an (archaeological) expedition. They consist mostly of sandstone sculptures dating from the 10^th to the 14^th centuries, with two earlier (7^th – 8^th century) examples. The “similar material” that was sold in May 2001 can be identified amongst the Cambodian pieces in that sale by the similarity in the provenance information given in the catalogue: there were 14 lots described as having been collected or acquired by the owner’s grandfather in Cambodia in the mid-1920s. The Bernard inventory sets out a list of these 25 pieces, the majority of which are broken or fragmented sandstone statues, mounted for display. There are also a number of architectural fragments, and some free-standing statues. The size of these pieces, which range from a 31 cm-high torso of a female deity to the BM’s 190 cm-high sandstone stele or relief of an apsara, suggests that they were unlikely to have been sold by the École Française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO) in the 1920s.⁵

[For pieces that were sold at auction, links have been included in the spreadsheet to the relevant Christie’s sales results page, which includes photographs of the objects. For objects not sold at auction, photographs can be viewed in the relevant hard-copy catalogues. If readers recognise the objects and are able to provide any information as to their current location, they are encouraged to get in touch via the contacts on the CO-OP project website.]

It has been more difficult to find information about Professor Bernard and his expedition, and in fact there is no reference to a ‘Bernard’ in the records of the French Archaeological Commission from the 1920s⁶ As a document provided by the consignor of some of the objects, the ‘Certificat de provenance’ might be expected to contain more details; however, it does not include any information on Professor Bernard or the expedition additional to that published by the BM or Christie’s, and in fact it seems to raise more questions. A handwritten note in English on the ‘Certificat de provenance’ (which is typed in French) states that it was provided by “Mme Bernard” (British Museum Archives, Object File re. 2002,0330.1 – Certificat de provenance dated 3 October 2001); however, the person giving and signing the statement (the signature is not legible) did not include their name, and no comment was made on the relationship between the maker of the statement and Dr Bernard as the owner of the collection inherited from his father. The fact that the first names of Dr Bernard and Professor Bernard are not provided also makes it more difficult to establish who they and the consignors of the objects were.  

As neither the ‘Certificat de provenance’ nor the Christie’s catalogues state that Professor Bernard was an archaeologist, and thanks to a suggestion from Dr Gabrielle Abbe, we considered the possibility that (Professor) Bernard was instead Colonel Fernand Bernard. Colonel Bernard was a French army officer who, after leading the French commission on the delineation of the border between the French Protectorate of Cambodia and Siam (1904 – 1907), became the director of a steamship company, the Compagnie des messageries fluviales de Cochinchine, a role he held until around 1937.⁷ It could have been in his capacity as director of the steamship company that he visited Cambodia in the 1920s (and, possibly, that he was able to transport at least 25 pieces of sculpture from Cambodia to France). There are a number of publications on aspects of the economy and governance of French Indochina and other French colonial territories that mention Colonel Bernard, so a clearer picture of his work and activities in French Indochina could be achieved. However, the information available about Colonel Bernard’s descendants does not correspond to that provided in the ‘Certificat de provenance’ and it does not seem that he was ever known as ‘Professor’ Bernard, so it is not certain whether this would be a productive line of enquiry in relation to the Bernard objects.

Further research on these objects would potentially help not only to shed light on the origins of the objects themselves (some of which, as noted in the inventory of the BM collection, appear to have authenticity issues),⁸ but also on collecting practices during the colonial period. While Khmer artworks removed from Cambodia under the orders or authorisation of the French colonial authorities have generally been left outside of the scope of recent restitution discussions, it seems more likely, in the absence of any evidence of sale or export by the EFEO, that these Bernard objects (if they are not more recent (re)productions) belong to a different category: of objects removed from their original locations by tourists or visitors. Prevention of this type of removal was one of the arguments (albeit paradoxical) used in favour of legislation passed in 1923 that allowed the EFEO to sell certain, limited, types of object, with the overriding intention being one of heritage preservation (Abbe 2021).

---

Prehistoric artefacts, BM 1890,0208.1-62

The removal of the final group of objects considered here seems, like the removal of sculpture from temples by visitors, to have attracted criticism from the EFEO, but for different reasons. This group of over 60 Neolithic artefacts, including adze blades and earthenware bowls, was purchased by the BM from Henry Jammes (as his name is given in the online collections database), otherwise known as Ludovic Henri Jammes. He served as the director of the École royale in Phnom Penh, was a member of the Société des Études indochinoises and later became the editor-in-chief of a Saigon newspaper, the Courrier du Saïgon.

It is not clear when or why he became interested in archaeology but in 1887-1888 he visited the prehistoric site of Samrong Sen to carry out excavations. He recorded his findings in two articles, similar in substance (Jammes 1891 and 1894), which were later revisited in an article by Louis Finot, a former director of the EFEO (Finot 1928). The name of Samrong Sen is recorded in the BM’s online database as the place of production of at least some of the BM objects, so it can be assumed that these objects come from those same excavations, and thus these objects are the only ones in the BM’s Cambodia collection in respect of which the original location in Cambodia can be identified with any certainty. Finot stated that Jammes travelled to Paris in 1889 to present his findings at the Congress of Anthropology and Prehistoric Archaeology, and that Jammes benefited from the publicity around his collection (including from his own publications) to sell substantial parts of it, in 1890 and 1898, to what is now the Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. (Finot 1928, p. 474). It seems that Finot was not aware of Jammes’ sale of 62 artefacts to the BM, which is not mentioned at all in his article. The objects sold to the Smithsonian appear to comprise similar types to those in the BM’s collection, including shell pendants and bone fishhooks. They were deaccessioned by the Smithsonian in 1983 and transferred to the Musée d’Histoire Naturelle – Guimet in Lyon and then, after the closure of that museum in 2007, to the Musée des confluences.

Finot appeared to accept the provenance and authenticity of the artefacts excavated or found by Jammes but wrote sceptically of both his amateur archaeological practices and written claims in relation to the excavations (Finot 1928, 475). In this way, Finot’s criticism seems to resemble, somewhat ironically, that levelled at the EFEO’s own sanctioning of excavations of prehistoric sites in Vietnam and Cambodia by largely self-taught amateur archaeologists (see, for example, Gaspardone 1936), which eventually led the EFEO to commission the Swedish archaeologist Olov Janse to conduct a number of excavations in Vietnam. Together the Jammes collection and the Bernard objects provide examples of how the removal of artefacts and artworks from Cambodia attracted criticism from the colonial services responsible for them, for different reasons, including the circumstances of such removal.

---

Possibilities for future research

Although it has not been possible to reach definitive conclusions about the circumstances in which the objects considered here left Cambodia, this report has sought to identify further questions that might be asked of these examples, which include objects that may well have been looted or illicitly removed from Cambodia in the 1960s and ‘70s and earlier. Further research on these objects and the collections to which they previously belonged should, in the case of the Eilenberg objects and the sandstone torso, reveal more about the networks within which illicitly exported objects were traded in the second half of the 20^th century. The published acquisition histories of the sandstone torso and the Bernard objects raise questions about interactions or continuity between colonial collecting practices and later twentieth-century ‘art’ collecting – not least in the way that a colonial history might be used to lend legitimacy to objects with dubious provenance. As the discussions of the Bernard and Jammes objects show, however, the removal of objects from Cambodia during the colonial period often occurred in circumstances that were at least morally, if not legally, ambiguous. Further research on these objects would help to shed light on tensions between the practices of French colonial collectors and the EFEO’s mission of heritage preservation. Finally, future research could also build on the work begun through this project of identifying related objects acquired by the collectors discussed here, and now held at different institutions or sold at auction and likely in private collections, with the aim of arriving at a broader overall understanding of collector motivations and of the trade in cultural objects from Cambodia.

1. For background on Eskenazi’s business, see, for example: Markbreiter 2022 (an interview with Arts of Asia magazine, https://artsofasia.com/interview-with-giuseppe-eskenazi/); Moore 2022 (https://www.ft.com/content/8492d54d-f156-4ca7-ab5c-17a49aa4ea93); Tao 1995 on the state of the London art market (https://www.theartnewspaper.com/1995/03/01/have-the-salerooms-killed-off-london-as-a-major-player-in-the-asian-art-market); and Norman 1993 on the opening of Eskenazi’s Mayfair gallery (https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art-market-an-italian-orientalist-in-london-leading-dealer-giuseppe-eskenazi-is-defying-recession-by-opening-a-dazzling-new-gallery-in-mayfair-with-three-pieces-priced-over-pounds-1m-2316539.html). ↩︎
2. The Sainsbury Collection piece that the BM was referring to is probably a Baphuon style female torso donated to the Sainsbury Centre at the University of East Anglia in 1973 by Robert and Lisa Sainsbury: https://www.sainsburycentre.ac.uk/art-and-objects/276-female-torso/. The provenance information provided by the Sainsbury Centre states that the Sainsbury family acquired the torso from an auction of George Eumorfopoulos’s collection in 1940, and also speculates that it might have initially been purchased from the École Française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO), although evidence for this is not provided or referenced ↩︎
3. For background on Spink & Son’s business, see, for example, the Telegraph’s obituary of Anthony Spink, the last family chairman of the company, who died in 2019 (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2019/11/25/anthony-spink-last-family-chairman-spink-son-350-year-old-dealer/); and for discussions of investigations into illegally exported Khmer antiquities and the passage of such objects through Spink & Son, see, for example, Reuter and Politzer 2021 (https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/how-we-tracked-ancient-cambodian-antiquities-leading-museums/) and Conn and Politzer 2021 (https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/oct/05/offshore-trusts-used-pass-on-looted-khmer-treasures-leak-shows-douglas-latchford) ↩︎
4. Copies of these materials were viewed at the National Art Library. ↩︎
5. Personal communication from Gabrielle Abbe to Prof. Ashley Thompson, December 2023; see Abbe 2021 for more on the auctions and sales organised by the EFEO. ↩︎
6. Personal communication from Gabrielle Abbe to Prof. Ashley Thompson, December 2023, although she notes that some sections of the text are missing from the [online] version. ↩︎
7. See, for example, Echenberg and Filipovich 1986, footnote 15 on p.536 for a short biography. ↩︎
8. It is possible that at least some of the objects associated with Bernard are early twentieth century imitations or creations. However, while the production of fakes and their use in the illicit art trade has been recognised as a feature of the smuggling networks that emerged during the chaos of the Cambodian civil war and genocide (see Masayuki Nagashima 2002 and Mackenzie and Davis 2014), there seems to be [far less] evidence for the production of fakes in the early twentieth century. This raises the possibility that the objects were created during the second half of the twentieth century and therefore calls into question the reliability of the provenance information provided in relation to them. ↩︎

References

Abbe, G. (2021). “The Selling of Khmer Artefacts during the Colonial Era: Questioning the perception of Khmer heritage through a study of traded Khmer art pieces (1920s-1940s).” In Returning Southeast Asia’s Past: Objects, Museums, and Restitution, edited by L. Tythacott and P. Ardiyansyah, pp. 41-61. Singapore: NUS Press.

Boisselier, J. (1989).Trends in Khmer Art. English edition edited by Natasha Eilenberg and translated by Natasha Eilenberg and Melvin Elliott. Ithaca, New York: Cornell Southeast Asia Program.

Christie’s Amsterdam BV (2001). Asian Ceramics and Works of Art: 8 May 2001. Amsterdam: Christie’s. 

Christie’s Amsterdam BV (2001). Indian, Himalayan and Southeast Asian Art: Wednesday 21 November 2001. Amsterdam: Christie’s.

Conn, D. and M. Politzer (2021). “Offshore loot: how notorious dealer used trusts to hoard Khmer treasures.” The Guardian, 5 October 2021. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/oct/05/offshore-trusts-used-pass-on-looted-khmer-treasures-leak-shows-douglas-latchford. Accessed 26 February 2024.

Echenberg, M. and J. Filipovich (1986). “African Military Labour and the Building of the Office du Niger Installations, 1925-1950.” The Journal of African History, Vol. 27, No. 3: pp. 533-551.

Eskenazi Ltd (1972). Inaugural Exhibition: Early Chinese ceramics and works of art. 1 March 1972. London: Eskenazi Ltd.

Finot, L. (1928). “Ludovic Jammes, préhistorien.” Bulletin de l’École Française d’Extrême-Orient, Vol 28: pp 473-479.

Gaspardone, E. (1936). “Fouilles d’Indochine,” Revue de Paris, Vol. 6 (November 1936): 615-637.

Hicks, D. (2021). The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution. Paperback edition. London: Pluto Press.

Jammes, L. (1891). “Les anciennes civilisations de l’Indochine. L’âge de la pierre polie du Cambodge d’après de récentes découvertes.” Bulletin de géographie historique et descriptive, pp. 35-52.

Jammes, L. (1894). “Les anciennes civilisations de l’Indo-Chine.” La Revue Indochinoise Vol. I: pp. 91-98.

Lerner, M. and S. Kossak (1991). The Lotus Transcendent: Indian and Southeast Asian Art from the Samuel Eilenberg collection. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Mackenzie, S. and T. Davis (2014). “Temple Looting in Cambodia. Anatomy of a Statue Trafficking Network.” British Journal of Criminology, Volume 54: pp. 722-740.

Mackenzie, S. and D. Yates (2017). “What is Grey about the “Grey Market” in Antiquities?” InThe Architecture of Illegal Markets: Towards an Economic Sociology of Illegality in the Economy, edited by J. Beckert and M. Dewey, pp. 70-86. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Markbreiter, R. (2022). “Interview with Giuseppe Eskenazi.” Arts of Asia, Winter 2022. Available at: https://artsofasia.com/interview-with-giuseppe-eskenazi/. Accessed 26 February 2024.

Masayuki Nagashima (2002). The Lost Heritage: the reality of artifact smuggling in Southeast Asia. Bangkok: Post Books.

Mashberg, T. and G. Bowley (2022). “Cambodia Says It’s Found Its Lost Artifacts: In Gallery 249 at the Met.” The New York Times, 18 August 2022. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/18/arts/design/met-artifacts-cambodia.html. Accessed 27 February 2024.

Moore, S. (2022). “Giuseppe Eskenazi on five decades of selling East Asian Art.” The Financial Times, 1 November 2022. Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/8492d54d-f156-4ca7-ab5c-17a49aa4ea93. Accessed 26 February 2024.

Norman, G. (1993). “An Italian Orientalist in London: Leading dealer Giuseppe Eskenazi is defying recession by opening a dazzling new gallery in Mayfair – with three pieces priced over pounds 1m.” The Independent, 30 May 1993. Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art-market-an-italian-orientalist-in-london-leading-dealer-giuseppe-eskenazi-is-defying-recession-by-opening-a-dazzling-new-gallery-in-mayfair-with-three-pieces-priced-over-pounds-1m-2316539.html. Accessed 26 February 2024.

Pal, P. (2021). “The Quiet Collector and the Sensuous Immortals.” https://www.asianart.com/articles/humann/index.html, 28 January 2021. Accessed on 31 January 2024.

Reuter, D. and M. Politzer (2021). “How we tracked Cambodian antiquities to leading museums and private galleries.” International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, 5 October 2021. Available at: https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/how-we-tracked-ancient-cambodian-antiquities-leading-museums/. Accessed 26 February 2024.

Sotheby’s New York (1998). Indian and Southeast Asian Art: Thursday 26 March 1998. New York: Sotheby’s.

Tabachnik, S. (2022a). “Unmasking “The Scholar”: The Colorado woman who helped a global art smuggling operation flourish for decades.” The Denver Post, 1 December 2022. Available at: https://www.denverpost.com/2022/12/01/emma-bunker-douglas-latchford-cambodian-art-denver-art-museum/. Accessed 27 February 2024.

Tabachnik, S. (2022b). “Who was Emma C. Bunker? Colorado scholar played role in laundering stolen art.” The Denver Post, 1 December 2022. Available at: https://www.denverpost.com/2022/12/01/who-was-emma-c-bunker-colorado-denver-asian-art-scholar/. Accessed 27 February 2024.

Tao, M. (1995). “Have the salerooms killed off London as a major player in the Asian art market?” The Art Newspaper, 1 March 1995. Available at: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/1995/03/01/have-the-salerooms-killed-off-london-as-a-major-player-in-the-asian-art-market. Accessed 26 February 2024.

Telegraph Obituaries (2019). “Anthony Spink – last family chairman of Spink & Son, the 350-year-old dealer in fine collectables whose clients included heads of state and stars of stage and screen – obituary.” The Telegraph, 25 November 2019. Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2019/11/25/anthony-spink-last-family-chairman-spink-son-350-year-old-dealer/. Accessed 26 February 2024.

UNESCO 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, 14 November 1970. https://www.unesco.org/en/legal-affairs/convention-means-prohibiting-and-preventing-illicit-import-export-and-transfer-ownership-cultural#item-1. Accessed 26 January 2024.