Asia Society condemns the illegal trade in cultural patrimony and the looting of archaeological or historic sites. The institution has partnered with international organizations including UNESCO and IFAR on ways to prevent looting and to help educate the public about the illegal art trade. We place the highest priority on proactively and professionally researching the provenance of our collection and take very seriously new provenance information that comes to light.

For the past several years, Asia Society has substantially increased its efforts to research the provenance of works in its collection, and as of this date approximately one-third of the traditional collection has been reviewed. We endorse an open sharing of information about works in our collection to add to this research. We are working to include important provenance information about individual works on our website. We have hosted and attend conferences in the field sharing our policies and practices. When works from our traditional collection are exhibited in our museum, we include information about their provenance.

Asia Society welcomes any information from third parties regarding works in its collection. We will actively work with officials in foreign governments or with others to ascertain the details surrounding the origin of a work, if there are concerns about it. We will add information obtained from others to what we have been able to research on our own to better understand where the work was originally located and how it came to be at Asia Society. If a claim for an object is made proving that it was looted, stolen or otherwise illegally exported, we will conduct a full review of the matter and if the claim is warranted, we will return the object to its rightful owner as we have done in the past.

Updated March 9, 2023