New York justice has returned to China two sculptures seized from the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Justice in New York returned to China on Tuesday, May 9, seizing two funerary statues from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The two stone works date back to the seventh century and have a value of $3.5 million “to publish” found graves in the early 1990s, then smuggled out of China and trafficked internationally, said Manhattan Attorney General Alvin Bragg. to 1998 until taken over in 2023, these artifacts were on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MIT) by Shelby White, a Manhattan collector..

New York State Justice has been leading an extensive campaign for more than two years to recover looted antiquities from nearly two dozen countries, which have landed in museums and galleries in the city, including the prestigious Met. “It is a shame that these two amazing masterpieces were stolen and that at least one of them has been hidden from the public for nearly three decades.”Sentencing Alvin Bragg. One of the sculptures has actually been stored in the museum’s reserves for 25 years.

The New York Attorney General’s Office said:This year I completed a criminal investigation into my antiquities [Shelby] The white paper, which resulted in the seizure of 89 works from ten different countries, with a total value of $69 million.. Under the auspices of Alvin Bragg, more than 950 items worth more than $165 million have been returned to 19 countries since January 2022.