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Nguyễn Duy Blog Coming Home – Emma Bunker (Part 1): Thursday, November 9, 2023
Coming Home – Emma Bunker (Part 1):
As a way to enhance their veneer of respectability and philanthropic facade, one of the kingpin traffickers of Khmer art for decades, Douglas Latchford, and his sidekick, Emma Bunker, made a habit of donating antiquities to the Cambodian government. For Bunker, the first gift in her name was in 2003 and continued until half a dozen artifacts were handed-over in 2013. This was around the time that Latchford and Bunker had been implicated by repute, Bunker as ‘The Scholar,’ rather than by name, in the case of the stolen Koh Ker Duryodhana-Sotheby’s episode. Bunker had burst onto the academic scene in 1972 with a story exposing the Prakhon Chai hoard of bronze treasures found in northeast Thailand. Latchford was involved behind the scenes, selling off the bronzes to major museums and collectors, while Bunker’s reputation as a respected scholar and author grew as a board member and major benefactor over six decades at the Denver Art Museum and as a teacher at Colorado College. Her collaboration with Latchford was cemented with the publication of their three books together, Adoration and Glory in 2004, Khmer Gold in 2008 and Khmer Bronzes in 2011, which were used to legitimize some of the looted artifacts obtained through Latchford’s trafficking network, with Bunker providing all the text for the books. The beginning of the end came when Latchford was indicted in late 2019 by US federal prosecutors, though Bunker was never charged. Latchford, suffering from Parkinson’s disease, died in August 2020 before he could stand trial, and Bunker died six months later, aged 90.
Bunker’s first donation to Cambodian authorities came in 2003 with the gift of a bronze pendant or amulet, similar in style to those worn by female Devata in bas-reliefs on the walls of Angkor Wat. Dated to the twelfth century and 11 centimeters wide, it’s cast in the shape of a ring with small floral motifs though the inlaid gem-stone or crystal is missing. The following year, 2004, she donated a gilded silver bowl, which has a 1-line ancient Khmer inscription offering the bowl to the deity Lokeshvara by none other than King Jayavarman VII in 1216. These two items were both included in the 2004 book Adoration and Glory, and are examples of Latchford and Bunker’s attempt to legitimize their stolen treasures.
In 2008, Bunker made two more donations to the National Museum in Phnom Penh, and unsurprisingly, both were also included in the 2004 glossy coffee-table sized book, Adoration and Glory. They were gold earrings, the first described as spool earrings, dated to the tenth century. It was formed from gold sheet, chisel-cut and hammered, circular in appearance, with overlapping ends. The second earring was on its own, a heavy bronze cast with a thick gold sheet and a unique style. It consists of five circular bands inside the spiky border with two bands of Naga-heads. Very unusual and dated to the eleventh century. The truth behind how, when and where Bunker obtained any of these artifacts is not known and very likely, will never be known. The audacity of Latchford and Bunker in promoting these unique antiquities in their own glossy books-cum-catalogues was the next level up from the brochures produced by the auction houses and dealers. An additional donation of six more pieces in 2013 will be the focus of a separate post on Emma Bunker’s gifts to Cambodia.
Credit by: Mr Andy Brouwer
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#Khmer Culture