I was informed a year ago that the arrival of a hoard of Latchford antiquities was imminent.

The Latchford Top 10:

I was informed a year ago that the arrival of a hoard of Latchford antiquities was imminent. They are still awaited. A multitude of media reports and news segments on the nefarious activities of British art dealer-cum-smuggler Douglas Latchford, who trafficked Khmer art around the world for more than fifty years, have exposed him as the No. 1 Enemy of Cambodia’s cultural heritage. He kept some of the very best antiquities that he traded in for himself, decorating his apartments in London and Bangkok with outstanding examples of Khmer artworks. In a series of photographs, sent to me by a Facebook reader, and taken in the plush Mayfair-London home of Douglas Latchford in 2014 and 2015, I identified more than forty stone and bronze Khmer artworks, plus many pieces of jewelry, all of which were kept in virtual secrecy by Latchford in his personal collection. However, this private hoard of antiquities was fluid, as he sold some pieces and added others over time. He also maintained a similar collection of antiques at his home in Bangkok too. These treasures are the best of his hoard, separate from the thousands of Khmer works of art that he received from the looters decimating the cultural heritage of sacred Khmer temples, which he then arranged to be trafficked all over the globe to world-renowned museums, private collectors, art galleries and auction houses. He did this for decades, masquerading as a respectable collector-cum-scholar, writing glossy scholarly books with Emma Bunker or donating artifacts to museums and governments to maintain his philanthropic and benevolent veneer. Meanwhile, Latchford made millions of dollars from his villainous activities, which he kept hidden from prying eyes in secret offshore trust accounts, and managed to evade justice for many decades until his indictment on a series of charges in 2019, a year before his death.

These photographs of Latchford’s personal collection of antiquities are a window into his world. They give you a flavour of his personal preferences when it came to Khmer art. This is my own selection of the Top Ten Khmer artworks from the Latchford collection, in preference order. One of these pieces has already found its way back to Cambodia, as a result of the promise by Latchford’s daughter to repatriate those Khmer pieces still in the family’s possession. The whereabouts of the remainder aren’t yet publicly known, but they too may be on their way back to Cambodia as the Latchford family fulfill their commitment – the Cambodian authorities are expecting more returned artworks any day now. However, the possibility remains that some of these treasures may never be seen again. The Latchford story – which was portrayed in the recent documentary film LOOT: A Story of Crime and Redemption - is far from finished. There is still much more to be told.

 

Credit By :Andy Brouwer