I just did something stupid.
I have taken the stone head of Lord Vishnu, the greatest protector of the universe. It’s heavy, my fingers slip and I think I’m about to drop it.
It is a sculpture separated by time and space, carved by unknown hands about 1200 years ago.
Instead of being in his old jungle home, perhaps a temple, he is backing firewood inside a dusty garage on the north coast of NSW.
Hundreds of works like this came to Australia in the 1960s and 1970s.
But the story of how they got here has never been told.
For four months, I have been researching these works for Background Briefing and what I have found is alarming: a story of dubious merchants, looted temples and some of the most exclusive collections in the world.
When I finally raise Lord Vishnu to the dining room table, his unblinking eyes look at me.
I ask the owner if this and other artifacts were potentially stolen. He shrugs.
“Possibly. Definitely. Sure.”
Mal karma
In the jungles of Cambodia, Sopheap Meas is raising old curses.
She is an archaeologist working for the Cambodian government and her job is to find stolen ancient Khmer artifacts in her country.
For many in Cambodia, works of art are not just stone artifacts but “living” gods. To them, these sculptures were not stolen, they were kidnapped.
“It’s like they lost their ancestor, an ancestral spirit,” he says.
“So when they see the temple, they say, ‘I don’t want to go there because God is not there, God lives outside the land.'”
During the 1960s and 1970s, hundreds, if not thousands, of contraband, violent and desperate years were smuggled for Cambodia.
Cambodia was a victim of the Vietnam War, then the Khmer Rouge orchestrated a bloody revolution and rallied the population to agricultural slave camps now known as “death camps.”
It is estimated that 2 million people died.
While Cambodia was looted, the trade in stolen antiques was booming. It was a smugglers’ paradise.
Refugees fleeing the country brought sculptures across the border to Thailand, where traders were willing to receive them.
But there was also large-scale organized theft of antiques. In one case, the soldiers closed an entire temple complex, attacked it during the night, and took their loot by helicopter.
Some looters have never forgotten their past jobs. Many feel they are cursed and this guilt has led them to Sopheap.
“Here, we really firmly believe in evil karma; people want to be born with God when they die,” he says.
The looters are sharing with Sopheap the stories of his robbery, including the disturbing details of the pirated and sold sculptures.
As she listens to these stories, Sopheap struggles to contain her sadness.
“I cry, my hands are shaking a lot,” he says.
“I almost fall … it’s so painful to hear what happened to these objects.”
While tracing the statues in the field, another part of his team travels the journey of these works abroad.
“Australia is on our radar,” says his colleague Bradley Gordon, a lawyer who works with the Cambodian Ministry of Culture.
“We know several statues ended up there.”
And as my research has revealed, these artifacts have been hidden from view.
The five-headed snake
In July 1974, the Australian Museum in Sydney hosted an exhibition of more than 100 Khmer and Thai artifacts from one of the most exclusive and extensive private collections of the time.
The Australian Museum held an extensive exhibition of the Douglas Snelling collection. (Australian Museum / Teresa Tan)
The then Ambassador of the Khmer Republic, Chhut Chhoeur, wrote the prologue to the exhibition.
“The collection not only presents some excellent examples of Khmer art, but also tries to show the influence that the Khmers had on their neighbors.”
The dramatic centerpiece was a five-headed snake rising above its tail, described as a “naga ornament.”
The heads are framed by a hood, embellished with flourishes and decoration. The sculptor even captured the individual scales of the wavy snake skin.
But something about the description is problematic: “From the temple of Preah Vihear on the border of Cambodia and Thailand.”
Preah Vihear is an ancient temple of the Khmer Empire that was recognized as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2008.
Preah Vihear is an ancient temple located on a cliff that straddles the border between Thailand and Cambodia.
“In the art market in general, if you can identify where something is coming from, you see that it improves the marketing of the object,” says Asian art expert Angela Chiu.
“This shows how the art market has turned this disturbing source of the object not into something that should worry us about looting, but about marketing.”
So to whom did all these works belong?
The “Hollywood Man”
Frozen in the camera flash of the women’s weekly “People and Fashion” pages, there is a gray-haired man with a pencil mustache, next to a brown-haired woman in a fur coat.
Douglas Snelling and his wife, Patricia, were captured during the presentation of their Australian Museum exhibition by the Australian Women’s Weekly in 1974. (Australian Women’s Weekly)
The photo is entitled: “The Consul General of the Khmer Republic, Mr. Doug Snelling, and Ms. Snelling, donated their valuable collection of Cambodian sculptures for the art exhibition that is currently being exhibition at the Australian Museum “.
“The Consul General of the Khmer Republic, Mr Doug Snelling, and Mrs Snelling have donated their valuable collection of Cambodian sculptures for the art exhibition currently on display at the Australian Museum,” says the title.
Once I start researching Douglas Snelling, I find that he is a person who seems to defy definition.
He worked as a writer, publicist, radio personality, ammunition factory worker, representative of a foreign government, and Hollywood cartoonist.
But perhaps it is for its architecture and furniture design that it is best known.
I find a person who perhaps knows more about Douglas Snelling than anyone in the country: the writer Davina Jackson, who wrote Snelling’s biography.
Errol-Flynn’s resemblance, Douglas Snelling, had many careers and many interests. (Sydney Morning Herald)
“Snelling was very glamorous,” he tells me.
“I come from a background in Vogue Living and then in design magazines, and we’re always very, very interested in these particular glamor magazines.”
She says she began her career in the late 1930s in America, where she spent time with some of the biggest stars of the time.
“I had met Errol Flynn and David Niven and the young Shirley Temple and many of you know it, emerging stars, Laurel and Hardy …”
His passion for Khmer art began when he visited Cambodia during his honeymoon with his second wife, Patricia.
Patricia and Douglas Snelling made their honeymoon for three months and visited Angkor Wat, according to biographer Davina Jackson. (Snelling Estate: Mitchell Library)
“This was the time when he became very enthusiastic about Khmer antiques and frankly became one of the most important and committed Khmer antique collectors in the world during the 1960s,” says Dr. Jackson. .
The trip also put him in touch with Cambodian ruler Prince Norodom Sihanouk.
After returning from his honeymoon he continued his relationship with Sihanouk and the Cambodian elite, culminating in his appointment as honorary consul in 1970.
As the Snelling star grew, he became famous for his furniture design.
Buried in the ABC archives, I find a 1976 interview with Snelling about his iconic product: the “Snelling chair.”
Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to search, up and down arrows for volume. Douglas Snelling, interview with Four Corners (ABC Archives)
Four Corners images show Snelling in his living room: an Aladdin cave with Khmer and Thai artwork.
There are seated Buddhas, torsos on wooden plinths and a majestic Dvaravati with flowing tunics and a raised hand on Katakahasta.
Dr. Jackson has good advice on where everything comes from. His research notes are in the NSW State Library, and among them are letters from Snelling that could reveal where he acquired the works.
“Angkor’s Robbery”
At the State Library, the life and achievements of Douglas Snelling have been condensed into 11 cardboard boxes.
And in those boxes, I discover an extraordinary letter of November 8, 1965, addressed to a close friend.
Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to search, up and down arrows for volume. Snelling letters (NSW / ABC RN State Library: Teresa Tan)
The letter says:
“Three months ago I had to meet a client in Hong Kong … so Patricia and I took the opportunity to spend a week in northern Thailand … We had an absolutely wonderful time and acquired many Cambodian antiques in stone and bronze.
“Apart from some small bronzes given to us by the royal family in Cambodia, we acquired our other Angkor pieces outside the Cambodian borders. Some of them we had to smuggle out of Thailand, despite which were originally stolen from Angkor.
“Our purchases were made for virtually nothing with ignorant peasants, because we were far from civilization for most of the trip. One of the bronzes we bought for about $ 20 has been valued by a New York art dealer in more than $ 100,000.
“That sounds crazy, I know, but similar extraordinary values apply to every piece we have, and now we have about 20.
“… One of the stone pieces, a seven-headed Naga with a Buddha’s head, is carved in basalt and weighs about 400 pounds. The most valuable bronze piece, which I thought was worth about $ 5,000, I didn’t never let go of my sight and took him all the way through Asia to Sydney. “
I pass my notes. The seven-headed naga was captured in Four Corners footage from Snelling’s living room.
Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to search, up and down arrows for volume. Artifacts in Douglas Snelling’s house captured by Four Corners (ABC file: Four Corners)
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