What began as a trickle has now become a flood as more institutions around the world return works of art that were bought from Manhattan antiquities dealer Subhash Kapoor, who ran the now defunct gallery Art of the Past for over three decades. Kapoor is awaiting trial in India on charges of smuggling looted artefacts worth more than $100m. He denies any wrongdoing. His gallery manager Aaron Freedman, however, pleaded guilty in 2013 in New York Supreme Court to possession of stolen property and is working with federal authorities, who have confiscated more than 2,000 objects from storerooms that belonged to Kapoor and his associates. Internal investigations at a number of museums have prompted a wave of restitutions in recent months. We will continue to update the list below:
• On 16 November 2015, the David Owsley Museum of Art at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana transferred custody of a bronze sculpture depicting Shiva and Parvati from the Chola Period (860-1279 AD) to the US Immigration and Custom Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations. The museum worked with the agency for five months before the piece was identified as having been illegally removed from Tamil Nadu, South India. The museum purchased the artefact from Kapoor in 2005 with a provenance attributed to Dr Leo Figiel, an American collector of Indian vernacular art who died in 2013, which placed the work in a US collection in 1969.
• On 19 October 2015, the Asian Civilizations Museum in Singapore announced that it will return an 11th-century bronze sculpture of the Hindu goddess Uma Parameshvari, which was bought for $650,000 in 2007. The sculpture is one of the 150 artefacts that former manager, Aaron Freedman, identified as looted in New York Supreme Court documents.
• On 5 October 2015, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel personally returned a 10th-century statue of the Hindu goddess Durga that had been on display in the Linden Museum in Stuttgart and was sold for $250,000. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi says that the Durga idol, which had been missing from a Kashmir temple for two decades, “is a symbol of victory over evil”.
• On 5 July 2015, federal authorities acquired an 11th-century bronze statue of Saint Manikkavichavakar valued at $1m from a New York art dealer, who was granted anonymity for his cooperation. Authorities say the collector, who paid $650,000 for the statue in 2006, was misled with false documents presented by Kapoor at the time of purchase.
• In April 2015, the Honolulu Museum of Art and the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, collectively returned eight items in the same week. The Peabody Essex returned a mid-19th-century portrait that it paid $35,000 for in 2006, while the Honolulu Museum of Art returned seven object it acquired from Kapoor between 1991 and 2003.
• In October 2014, the Toledo Museum of Art announced that it would return four works of art that it acquired from Kapoor between 2001 and 2010, including a bronze sculpture of the Hindu God Ganesha that is estimated to be almost 1,000 years old and was bought for $245,000 in 2006.
• In September 2014, the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott returned the first of two looted artefacts to the Indian Prime Minister Brander Modi as a gesture of good will from Australia in light of the Kapoor case. The first item, which was bought from Kapoor by the National Gallery of Australia in 2007, was a $5 million dancing Shiva; and, the second was a $300,000 statue depicting the Hindu God Ardhanarishvara from the Art Gallery of New South Wales.