NYC art dealer accused of selling stolen Hindu artifacts

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Tom Mashberg

A second-century Indian relief that the authorities seized from the Nancy Wiener Gallery in Manhattan. Credit Manhattan district attorney’s office

NEW YORK---One of New York’s most prominent antiquities dealers was arrested Wednesday on charges that she obtained millions of dollars in stolen artifacts from international smugglers and sold them illegally — often through major auction houses — by creating fraudulent documents to camouflage their history. Wiener, and several co-conspirators have trafficked in illegal antiquities since at least 1999. Works from the Wiener gallery are in collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Norton Simon Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum, and in institutions around the world. [link]