July 20, 2013: In the opaque world of art buying, one man's trash is another gallery's treasure.

In this case, a 1000-year-old bronze statue of Shiva sold by the National Gallery of Australia to help purchase a larger Shiva from a disgraced antiquities dealer has turned up in the collection of one of the world's leading museums.

The Dancing Shiva statue formerly owned by the Canberra gallery is now a prized item in the collection of the Louvre Abu Dhabi, featuring in its recent Birth of a Museum exhibition.

Fairfax Media understands the statue will also be displayed in an exhibition in the Louvre in Paris later this year.

Advertisement

The exhibition catalogue features an image of the Indian artefact, and states that before its acquisition on the European art market in 2009 the bronze Shiva from southern India was owned by the NGA between 1993 and 2009.

The statue's importance within the Hindu faith is emphasised in the catalogue: ''Among his many guises, one of his most celebrated is Nataraja, the Lord of the Dance who celebrates the destruction of the universe and the victories of the god over the demons.''

A bronze Nataraja statue was purchased by the NGA for about $1 million under the directorship of Betty Churcher on the advice of the Art Gallery of NSW's director Michael Brand, who was then curator of Asian art at the Canberra gallery.

The gallery rejected several lesser specimens to purchase the statue and was meticulous in obtaining a piece that did not have any suggestion of illegal export from its country of origin, The Australian Financial Review reported in 1994.

The statue was displayed in the NGA's 1995 exhibition Vision of Kings: Art and Experience in India curated by Dr Brand.

But the NGA led by present director Ron Radford received approval from then arts minister Peter Garrett to deaccession the Shiva, which was sold the following year. The NGA's deaccession policy provides for the removal of artworks that no longer positively contribute to the quality of the collection, with the ultimate approval of the arts minister.

The policy allows for deaccession where ''a more superior example has been acquired'' - the justification that seems to have been used to sell Churcher's Shiva for a larger version surrounded by a ring of flames.

''In deaccessioning any item, the gallery needs to proceed with great care and consideration to avoid any undue public concern and importantly avoid adverse reaction to current and future benefaction,'' the policy states.

The new Shiva was one of several Indian artefacts purchased from New York art dealer Subhash Kapoor for a total of $6.9 million and which may have been illegally removed from Indian temples, according to the Chasing Aphrodite website and The Australian.

If the pieces have been removed from India illegally, the NGA will be required to return them without compensation.

The gallery's decision to increase its Indian art collection has been questioned by the Herald's art critic John McDonald. ''I wouldn't have thought the Australian public was desperate to see a massive collection of Indian artefacts in the ground floor galleries of the NGA, he said.

''Even Indians do not come to Canberra to view Indian art.

''When they do, they are just as likely to feel indignant that these works have been removed from their rightful home.''

The NGA was approached for comment.

Source: The Age, DT. July 20, 2013.