Úc sẽ trả lại bức tượng bị đánh cắp cho Campuchia

The sculpture of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara Padmapani — the benevolent (nhân từ, ân cần) “lord who looks on from above” and “lotus bearer” — dates to the ninth or 10th century. Over about 15 years, it traveled from a rural area near the Vietnamese border (biên giới) to the hands of Douglas A.J. Latchford, a notorious (tai tiếng) trafficker (kẻ buôn lậu) of Asian antiquities (đồ cổ). In 2011, he in turn sold it and two smaller accompanying statues to the National Gallery of Australia, where they have resided ever since.

Now, after an extensive investigation (điều tra) into the work’s provenance (nguồn gốc, lai lịch, nơi phát sinh, nơi bắt nguồn), the gallery will return the sculptures in no more than three years to Cambodia, giving the government time to prepare an appropriate place for them in Phnom Penh, the capital.

At a ceremony last week in Canberra, Australia’s capital, Susan Templeman, a special envoy for the arts, described the handover (bàn giao, chuyển giao) in terms of reparations (sự bồi thường thiệt hại, sự đền bù thiệt hại).

“It is an opportunity to put right a historical wrong,” she said, “but also to strengthen our ties and deepen our understanding.”