Great leaps from unstable ground: A response to “Making a market for ‘The Art of Nepal’: Tracing the flow of Nepali cultural property into the United States”

Abstract Alisha Sijapati and Erin Thompson’s article “Making a market for ‘The Art of Nepal’: Tracing the flow of Nepali cultural property into the United States” makes a series of unsubstantiated claims about the nature and scope of the Nepali antiquities market in the 1950s and 1960s based on the authors’ research of a single 1964 exhibition of Nepali antiquities in the United States. This critical response will contest these claims by examining the broader Nepali antiquities market as it existed prior to 1970, particularly within Nepal and in South Asia, while also locating the authors and their claims in the context of the recent repatriation campaign by Nepali activists. Finally, the response will conclude that if there is to be an ethical turn in voluntary repatriation, there must be greater consideration of contexts beyond the West and a refocusing of provenance research beyond Western collectors and institutions.