Netscape Founder Gives Up $35 Million in Art Said to Be Stolen in Cambodia

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“Why would you want to own something that was stolen?” said James H. Clark, who investigators said had been persuaded to buy dozens of looted items by a rogue dealer.

 

Over a period of five years, James H. Clark, the internet pioneer whose Netscape browser once commanded that market, spent roughly $35 million, he recalled in an interview, to purchase dozens of Cambodian and Southeast Asian antiquities, many of which he used to furnish a penthouse in Miami Beach.

 

On Tuesday, federal officials announced he had surrendered the collection of 35 items, now valued at much more than he paid, after investigators convinced him that they were all stolen and that he had been duped by a shady antiquities dealer.

 

A bronze goddess of motherhood with four arms and elongated earlobes. A massive seated elephant deity in stone bearing a crown and an ornamented trunk. A boat prow with a depiction of a half-human bird of prey astride a mythic serpent.

 

read more https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/12/arts/design/james-clark-cambodian-antiquities.html