TN Idol Wing traces 19th-century Serfoji painting to US museum

CHENNAI: The Idol Wing of Tamil Nadu police on Thursday said that it had found the 19th-century painting of Raja Serfoji in the custody of Homeland Security of the USA and steps are being taken to retrieve it.

Homeland Security had received it from a museum in the USA that had purchased the painting from Subash Kapoor, an international antique smuggler, now lodged in Tamil Nadu jail. He smuggled the idol in the year 2006, five years before Kapoor was arrested in Frankfurt and brought to Chennai.

Idol Wing CID received a missing complaint of the painting of Raja Serfoji and his son Sivaji from Saraswathi Mahal from one E. Rajendran, which led to the registration of a case of theft in the year 2017. However, it is not clear when the painting was stolen from Saraswati Mahal in Tanjavur.

The investigation of the Idol Wing has disclosed that, in 1786, when Raja Tulaja of Thanjavur died, his adopted son Serfoji was young, and his other

son, Amar Sinh, was appointed the Raja. However, by 1798, the English controlled most Indian power structures and the British decided to place Serfoji as the king. Serfoji, soon, learned several languages, and he enlarged the Saraswati Mahal Library at Thanjavur, which even today boasts over forty thousand rare manuscripts and paintings. Serfoji was the last of the Bhonsle rajas of Thanjavur.

For long, the rulers of Thanjavur had been devoid of absolute power. Serfoji died in 1832. His only son Shivaji ruled until 1855. However, he had no male successor. Thanjavur became a casualty of Lord Dalhousie's infamous 'Doctrine of Lapse', and got absorbed into British-ruled Indian provinces. The painting, which has Raja Serfoji and his youthful son, according to some historians, was probably painted between 1822 and 1827 and kept in the Saraswathi mahal.

In 1918 the Saraswathi Mahal Library was opened to the public. Efforts were made to - microfilm and catalogue the contents in 1965 and the Government of India sanctioned the fund for the library's development. Despite this, there exists no record to show the disappearance of the painting from the mahal. When the efforts of the special team to locate the painting in India met with no success, the Idol Wing decided to check the museums and websites of antique collectors abroad. While doing so, they found that the 19th-century painting had been purchased by the Peabody Essex Museum(PEM) in Salem, Massachusetts, the USA, in 2006. Further, it revealed that the museum had purchased the painting from Subash Kapoor for $35,000.

PEM is one of several major art institutions worldwide that had purchased items from art dealer Subhash Kapoor, who was arrested in 2011 at the Frankfurt airport on charges of trafficking in stolen antiques from India.

It turns out that through Homeland Security Investigation (HSI) PEM had learned that a mid-19th century Tanjore portrait in its collection, which they had acquired from Subhash Kapoor's New York gallery in 2006, had falsified provenance said a press note from Idol Wing.

The Manhattan antiquities dealer Subhash Kapoor and his girlfriend Selina Mohamed had participated in a decades-long conspiracy and laundered stolen antiquities by creating false ownership histories. They had used the name of Leo Figiel, a collector of Indian art who died in 2013. Figiel provided Kapoor with this false letter claiming he acquired the artefacts from "a European collection in 1969." PEM, upon knowing from HSI investigations that the painting was a stolen piece of art

with falsified provenance, took a decision and handed over the Serfoji painting to the Department of Homeland Security as part of the government's ongoing investigation into an alleged international art fraud enterprise.

As decided, the PEM had handed over the painting of Serfoji to HSI way back in 2015, which our investigation has just revealed. It's surprising that despite Homeland Security's readiness to return the painting in 2015 to India, no steps have been taken so far to bring it back to Tamil Nadu. Through proper investigation, the Idol Wing successfully traced the painting to Homeland Security in the USA. Now, the wing has initiated steps to bring the painting of Serfoji back to Saraswati Mahal by proving the ownership through documents and the MLAT.

Further enquiries with the concerned authorities have confirmed our findings. "The Idol Wing hopes to retrieve the water-based painting and restore it to the Saraswathi Mahal library under the UNESCO treaty soon. The wing has initiated steps to restore the painting to the library" said Jayanth Murali, DGP, Idol Wing.