The Federal Impact | Stolen Tirumangai Alvar idol to return to TN temple from London
Discussions triggered by an article published in The Federal about stolen 16th century idol being found in a London museum pushed authorities to try to fetch it
The one-metre-tall bronze statue of saint Tirumangai Alvar was stolen in the late 1950s from the Soundararaja Perumal Temple at Kumbakonam in Tamil Nadu's Thanjavur district. A London museum where it was accidentally discovered has agreed to return the sculpture to India.
An antique 500-year-old bronze statue of Tirumangai Alvar, an eighth century Vaishnavite saint-poet, which was stolen from a temple in Tamil Nadu, is all set to return home.
The 16th century, one-metre-tall bronze statue of saint Tirumangai Alvar, the last of the 12 poet saints of the Vaishnava sect, was stolen in the late 1950s from the Soundararaja Perumal Temple at Kumbakonam in Tamil Nadu's Thanjavur district.
Now, more than 60 years later, the idol, which was found in a museum in London, will soon be brought back to be housed in its rightful place in the temple. The procedures involving the return of the idol to India are in the final stages.
The Federal impact
Interestingly, The Federal ran a story on March 5, 2020 on how the stolen idol was found in a museum. A source privy to the developments told The Federal that it was after the article that the idol theft got a lot of serious attention from art collectors both inside and outside the country.
They pushed Indian officials to bring the idol back to India.
The good news of the ghar wapsi of the original idol, which belonged to the Vijayanagara period (1336-1646) arrived to temple authorities in early June this year. And, the 2,000-year-old Perumal temple is now gearing up to celebrate its consecration.
While the news has made the residents of the temple town of Kumbakonam happy, the priests are on tenterhooks. "Everyday, devotees visit the temple and ask us whether the original idol has come back," a priest told The Federal.
Theft comes to light
The Vaishnavite saint statue theft came to light in November 2019, when an independent scholar stumbled upon the 16th century idol of the saint wielding a sword at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England.
He told the museum officials that the idol strongly resembles an idol in a photo found in the archives of the Institut Français de Pondichery and the Ecole française d’Extrême Orient (IFP-EFEO).
After some research, it was discovered that the idol matched the photograph of the bronze statue in the temple of Sri Soundararaja Perumal Kovil in Tamil Nadu in 1957.
The museum authorities revealed that they had bought the idol for $2,340 at an auction conducted by Sotheby's in 1967. On their part, the auction house said they had obtained the idol from the collection of Dr JR Belmont (1886-1981), a noted art and antiques collector in Basel, Switzerland.
Return of the idol
"Although there was no claim against the object, the museum brought the matter to the attention of the Indian High Commission on December 16, 2019, requesting any further information (including possible police records) that would help establish the object’s provenance; and noting that we were open to holding discussions about the possible repatriation of the sculpture" said a press note from the museum.
The Indian High Commissioner acknowledged the letter on December 24, 2019 and informed the museum that the information had been forwarded to the Indian authorities.
Then, the museum received a formal claim for the idol from the Indian High Commissioner on March 3, 2020.
The Federal's role
On March 5, The Federal published a detailed story on this idol theft, which graphically showed the minute details of the original idol that distinguish it from the fake idol currently located in the temple.
K Ramesh Kumar, photo archivist at IFP-EFEO, told The Federal that the story triggered widespread debate among art circles and the impact was such that the idol theft wing of Tamil Nadu expedited the process of bringing back the idol.
Quoting the story on Twitter (Now, X), S Vijaya Kumar, author of the acclaimed book The Idol Thief, said, "IFP photo helps retrieve stolen idols - yet no support from our own. Most of the search 'n' match is manual. So many retrievals have been due to them yet no corp support". Vijaya Kumar is a co-founder of India Pride Project, a network of art lovers who use social media to help track down artifacts stolen from India.
He also tagged the Twitter handles of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, industrialist Anand Mahindra, author Sanjeev Sanyal, former AIADMK cultural minister MaFoi K Pandiarajan and former Puducherry Governor Kiran Bedi.
Investigations into origins
After the idol started receiving a lot of attention, the museum began to set the ball rolling to collect more authentication data.
According to the museum, "in order to complete due-diligence investigations and build a more accurate provenance for the object", a staffer of Ashmolean Museum had planned to visit India in May 2020. However, it was postponed due to the COVID pandemic.
"The journey took place in July 2022, when the Ashmolean’s Curator of Indian Art met police officers from the Idol Wing and senior officials of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), the French Institute, Shri Nagaswamy Temple (Icon Centre), and Shri Soundararaja Perumal Temple" said the press note.
The ASI officials asked the museum to conduct a metal analysis of the bronze and the analysis report was submitted. Based on the results, the ASI completed a report on the object and its known provenance.
Meanwhile, a claim for the idol was submitted for consideration to the Museum’s Board of Visitors, i.e., trustees. The final decision on the return of the object resides with the vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford, under the University’s Procedures for the Return of Cultural Objects, the museum said.
What's next?
Amidst all the investigations, the museum had an update on its website recently that read, "On 11 March 2024, the Council of the University of Oxford supported a claim from the Indian High Commission for the return of a 16th-century bronze sculpture of Saint Tirumankai Alvar from the Ashmolean Museum. This decision will now be submitted to the Charity Commission for approval".
Talking to The Federal, Vijaya Kumar said that almost all the formalities have been completed and it is likely that the idol will be back in the temple by next year.
While the developments pertaining to this particular idol keeps unfolding, in September 2022, three more idols from the same temple were traced to different museums in the United States, by the Idol Wing, CID of Tamil Nadu.
It is said that the efforts to reclaim and retrieve all these idols are already on.
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