The Dancing Shiva

Object or Group Name

The Dancing Shiva

Case Summary

In 2008, the National Gallery of Australia paid Manhattan dealer Subhash Kapoor USD$5 million for a bronze sculpture of Shiva Nataraja, also known as the Dancing Shiva.

The more than 4-foot tall figure depicts the Hindu god as the Lord of Dance, prancing in a ring of flames as he steps on the head of a dwarf who represents ignorance. Shiva is ushering in the destruction of the weary universe so that the god Brahma may restart the process of creation. It is a common theme in Indian mythology, particularly in the Chola temples of Tamil Nadu in southern India.

Kapoor said he had purchased the bronze from a New York collector named Raj Mehgoub, who provided a signed document saying her husband had purchased the Shiva while serving as a diplomat in India from 1968 to 1971 – the year before India's national patrimony law made such exports illegal. "This sculpture has been out of India since 1971," the document said.

The story of the New York collector proved to be a fabrication, and the ensuing scandal in Australia's leading museum would make international headlines for years. Revelations about the Dancing Shiva triggered a sweeping assessment of looted antiquities in Australian museum collections, much as the Getty Museum scandal had in the United States several years earlier.

According to US and Indian investigators, the true story of the Dancing Shiva started a few years before the NGA purchase, when Kapoor traveled to Tamil Nadu to meet with the alleged head of a ring of idol thieves in the region, Sanjivi Asokan. Kapoor asked Asokan where he could find Chola-era bronzes, which were in high demand on the art market, and the two toured several remote temples where such idols were still under active worship.

Over the next several months, Asokan allegedly hired thieves who — for 700,000 rupees, or about USD$12,000 — broke into one of those temples and stole eight idols. After Asokan sent photos of the stolen Nataraja to Kapoor in October 2006, the Manhattan dealer agreed to purchase the Shiva and several other idols.

Asokan allegedly mingled the ancient idols with modern replicas to convince a government official to certify them as handicrafts. He exported them through his company Ever Star International Services Inc. to New York, where they were received by Kapoor’s Nimbus Imports Exports in the fall of 2006. Asokan was paid about USD $200,000 for the theft and export of the idols, court records show.

In April 2007, Kapoor obtained a certificate from the Art Loss Register saying the Shiva had not been registered as stolen property. Kapoor was not required to provide any provenance information for the bronze, despite ALR’s public claim that “certificates are not issued on the basis of incomplete or inadequately researched information.” The theft of the idols was only discovered by villagers months later, in 2008.

Kapoor included the Shiva in the catalog of his Madison Avenue gallery Art of the Past with this description: "Shiva as the Nataraja, The Lord of the Dance, is the symbol par excellence of South Asian art....This is the largest, most significant Chola Period sculpture of this subject to appear on the market in a generation."

In June 2013, journalist Jason Felch published evidence of the Shiva's theft, including the 2006 images of it in an Indian store room that Asokan had sent to Kapoor. The evidence contradicted the provenance provided to the museum by Kapoor. A close analysis by Indian art expert Vijay Kumar showed the Shiva in the looter's image was indeed the same as the sculpture on display at the National Gallery of Australia.

Soon after, Felch published additional images of other stolen objects that Kapoor had sold to the NGA. The museum had spent more than $8 million on the Shiva and 21 other objects from Kapoor’s gallery between 2002 and 2011, with many supposedly from the Mehgoub Collection. Photos seized by law enforcement from Kapoor later showed that many had been recently stolen from sites in India.

After several months of silence, the NGA released a statement in November 2013 through its attorney, stating: "The National Gallery of Australia believes there is yet to emerge any conclusive evidence to demonstrate that the 11th-12th century bronze sculpture of Shiva as Lord of the Dance in its collection was stolen or illegally exported from India."

In December 2013, however, Kapoor’s gallery manager Aaron Freedman, pled guilty to six criminal counts, including forging provenance. Two months later, in February 2014, the NGA sued Kapoor in US courts, alleging Kapoor and Freedman “fraudulently induced NGA to acquire the Shiva by making misrepresentations and false assurances concerning the history of the Shiva.” The museum stated that as a result of evidence the statue was stolen, the Shiva “now has, at best, clouded title and diminished or no financial and other value.” The museum still insisted, however, that there was no conclusive evidence the Shiva or other objects had been stolen.

In March 2014, NGA director Ron Radford was interviewed by Australia's ABC Four Corners program about the Shiva and other objects acquired from Kapoor. The reporters had uncovered a damning confidential document that showed The NGA had ignored the advice of its own attorney when buying the $5 million Shiva.

Radford's stumbling performance and reality-defying denials led some experts to question his ability to lead Australia’s premiere national museum. Days later, Radford announced his retirement from the NGA. Curator Robyn Maxwell, who handled the Shiva negotiations with Kapoor, also retired quietly.

In September 2014, Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbot returned the Dancing Shiva to India during a state visit with his counterpart Narendra Modi. George Brandis, Australia’s Attorney General and Arts Minister, had told Abbot that the Shiva, which had made international headlines, "was a potential problem in the relationship between the nations and ... returning the statues would be an important statement of goodwill towards the Indian Prime Minister, elected to office in May,” the Australian newspaper reported.

Kapoor, Asokan and the alleged thieves were all arrested and tried in India for the Sivan Temple thefts. Kapoor and Asokan also face criminal charges in the United States. In November 2022, Kapoor was convicted of trafficking charges in India and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Asokan and the other alleged thieves received lesser sentances.

The Dancing Shiva scandal triggered a sweeping review of provenance problems in Australian museum collections. In April 2016, the NGA announced that attorneys had conducted "an unprecedented review" of its Asian art collection and determined that 22 objects had “insufficient or questionable provenance documentation,” including 14 purchased from Kapoor.

Objects tied to Kapoor continue to surface in collections around the world.