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Tony Abbott will hand back the 900-year-old bronze Hindu “dancing shiva” – taken from India without permission by cultural traffickers – during his trip to close a deal providing Australian uranium to India.
The $5.6m Shiva Nataraja, which was bought by the National Gallery of Australia (NGA), was to be handed over at a formal reception at the presidential palace on Friday, after the Indian government requested its return in March.
A $300,000 stone Shiva with Nandi will also be returned.
The Shiva has been an irritant in the Australia-India relationship since the Indian government said the statue was taken from a temple in Tamil Nadu in contravention of its cultural property laws.
The statue was sold to the NGA through an Indian-born antiquities dealer, Subhash Kapoor, who is accused of organising a $100m smuggling ring. Kapoor was arrested in 2011 and extradited to India.
Although Australia is a signatory to the Unesco convention on prohibiting the illicit export of cultural property, it was unclear whether the government would return the statue.
As late as last November, NGA’s lawyers suggested no “conclusive evidence” had emerged to demonstrate the statue was stolen or illegally exported.
But in December, Kapoor’s office manager, Aaron Freedman, pleaded guilty in the New York supreme court to six counts of criminal possession of stolen property. The Shiva Nataraja was among the items listed as being illegally exported from India.
“This information represents a significant and concrete development in the available information regarding the Kapoor case,” the NGA statement said.
“The gallery has instructed its American attorneys to commence legal proceedings against Subhash Kapoor in accordance with the provisions of our acquisition agreement.”
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