Asian Art Provenance Project

Photograph of women walking in front of large colourful painting by Rodel Tapaya.

Installation view of Rodel Tapaya, The promise land: the moon, the sun, the stars, 2016 (detail), purchased 2017

watercolour of the goddess Lakshmi sitting on a lotus throne with elephants on either side that sprinkle water from the holy River Ganges

Kalighat Style, Lakshmi, Goddess of Prosperity and Beauty, lustrated by elephants [Gajalakshmi], 1855–60, The Gayer-Anderson Gift 1954

The National Gallery’s Asian Art Provenance Project, which was launched in 2014, has resulted in deaccession and repatriation of a number of works to their countries of origin.

Since the arrest of art dealer Subhash Kapoor in 2011, all artworks acquired by the National Gallery from his New York dealership Art of the Past have now been deaccessioned. This includes the return to India of Shiva as Lord of the Dance (Nataraja).

Download PDF Acquisitions from Art of the Past, New York.

The Asian Art Provenance Project was reviewed by the Honourable Susan Crennan AC, former Justice of the High Court of Australia, in 2015.

You can read the 2015 Crennan review here.

Do you have information about any of the works of art in our collection?

We would love to hear from you. To share your knowledge, please email us at provenance@nga.gov.au.

Collection Areas

Media Releases

Media releases related to the project can be accessed at the following links:

Related

Provenance

European & American Art Provenance Project
1933–1945

Painting of a grassy path through a village

Investigation into the provenance of artwork presumed to have been in Europe between 1933 and 1945. Do you have information about any of these works?

Provenance

Understanding where our collection comes from.

Article

National Gallery recognises launch of Digital Benin

The National Gallery is delighted to recognise the launch of Digital Benin, an extraordinary resource for present-day Nigeria.

Read Time: 4 minutes
Feature

Returning the Gods

A photo of a man riding a motorbike through a village

Anne Davies reports on why three 1000-year-old Cham bronze sculptures are being repatriated to Cambodia.

Read Time: 33 minutes

Art Enquiries & Claims Handling Procedure

In a high-ceilinged gallery space a woman walks near a wall pasted completely with coloured squares of writing

The Gallery invites people to make contact if they have a concern about a work that the Gallery owns, has borrowed, or is about to borrow.

Article

Right of return: Pakistan

The Head of a bodhisattva marks the first repatriation of a work to a country other than India under the auspices of the Asian art collection review.

Read Time: 6 minutes
Article

Right of return: Papua New Guinea

Senior Curator Grace Vele with NMAG staff cataloguing the objects into the NMAG collection.

In May 2022, Crispin Howarth, National Gallery Curator for Pacific Arts, travelled with the Tupuna to safely return it to Aotearoa/New Zealand.

Read Time: 4 minutes

Research Library & Archives

Photograph of building exterior with blue sky and wire sphere sculpture

The Research Library & Archives is open from Monday to Friday, by appointment, except on public holidays.

Article

Right of return: New Zealand

In May 2022, Crispin Howarth, National Gallery Curator for Pacific Arts, travelled with the Tupuna to safely return it to Aotearoa/New Zealand.

Read Time: 5 minutes
Article

Right of return: India

A limestone carved sculptured of people worshipping a diety

In 2016, art historian Robert Arlt, alerted the National Gallery to evidence that a work in the collection was likely to have been illegally sourced.

Read Time: 5 minutes