From the temples of India, to a New York dealership, to the climate-controlled display areas of the National Gallery of Australia, and finally, briefly, to an ill-lit corner of one of the gallery's thoroughfares.
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The journey of two ancient Indian sculptures has been long and winding, but they will now be voluntarily returned to their homeland, following the discovery of new evidence about their provenance.
Federal Arts Minister Mitch Fifield made the announcement on Monday alongside India's Minister of State for Culture and Tourism Mahesh Sharma, in town for the Confluence Festival of India in Australia, which is taking place across Australia until November.
The gallery purchased the 12th century Goddess Pratyangira, and Worshippers of the Buddha, dating back to the 3rd century, from the now-disgraced New York dealership Art of the Past in 2005.
Dealership owner Subhash Kapoor was arrested in 2011 and is now awaiting trial in India for his alleged involvement in the illicit art trade, with more charges pending in the US.
Mr Fifield said the gallery would be returning the sculptures to their homeland as the result of new photographic evidence uncovered as part of its Asian Art Provenance Research Project.
Evidence from the French Institute of Pondicherry showed that Goddess Pratyangira was in India in 1974, contradicting the dealer-supplied provenance, while more photographs showed Worshippers of the Buddha was in India as late as the 1990s.
The existence of the photographs suggests the NGA was supplied with false documentation, and that the antiques were likely to have been illegally exported from India.
In a statement, NGA director Gerard Vaughan said the return of the sculptures to India was ethically the only course of action for the gallery.
"This new evidence means the NGA cannot legally or ethically retain these works, and returning them to India is unquestionably the right thing to do," he said.
Indian high commissioner to Australia Navdeep Suri said the announcement of the return of the sculptures to coincide with the Confluence Festival gave "entirely new dimension to the relationship" between Australia and India.
"Gestures like this one are important building blocks in our relationship," he said.
"They go a long way, because while we work on many other fronts in terms of defence and security and trade and investment and so on, these are close personal connections. There's nothing that binds like culture does, like history does."
Dr Sharma said while the looted sculptures had strong emotional attachments for many Indians, the gallery's gesture was more important.
"The feelings behind that, the emotions behind that, the warmth of relations being enjoyed between the two countries is more important than antiques," he said.
The sculptures have not been on display at the gallery since August 2015, and it is not clear when they will be returned to India.
In 2014, the gallery returned to India a 900-year-old statue of the Dancing Shiva, which it had bought from Kapoor for $5.6 million in 2008.
The return followed a formal request from the Indian government.
