A thousand-year-old sculpture of goddess Durga slaying Mahishasur may not have been legally owned by Art Gallery of New South Wales.
The Weekend Australian has reported that the 140 centimeters tall red stone sculpture bought from a New York-based dealer, Nancy Wiener, was under scrutiny.
A spokeswoman for the Art Gallery of NSW told the newspaper that it was discovered that the goddess Durga idol was supplied without documentation.
In 2014, Australia returned a 900-year-old antiquity to India after it was found to have been stolen from a temple in India. The $300,000 idol was among the six antiquities he AGNSW had bought from disgraced dealer Subhash Kapoor.
Nancy Wiener had earlier sold a Budha sculpture to the National Gallery of Australia with a fraudulent export certificate. Last month, her art gallery in New York was raided and police seized three antiquities and paperwork.
