Family returns five Cypriot antiquities acquired in the 1950s to Cyprus's ambassador in Sweden

Five ancient objects from Cyprus that Bengt Widehag acquired in the 1950s were handed to the Cypriot ambassador to Sweden, Doros Venezis, at a meeting in Stockholm on 22 October 2026, so that they can be repatriated. Widehag's extended family decided to give them back, and Thomas Rydén of the auction house Crafoord Auktioner, who had recognised their importance, handed them over, the Cyprus embassy in Stockholm announced the same day in a post the Department of Antiquities shared.

A family's decision and an auctioneer's help

The embassy framed the return as a gift. Venezis thanked the Widehag family for choosing, generously, to send the pieces back to Cyprus, and thanked Rydén for seeing their significance and for helping the return along. He called Rydén's wider work in the field "a fine example of ethical practice and cultural stewardship". Crafoord Auktioner has salerooms in Lund, Malmö and Stockholm.

Two Swedish heritage professionals attended: Peg Magnusson of the Swedish National Heritage Board (Riksantikvarieämbetet), and Nina Olivier, a conservator at the Nordiska museet in Stockholm. The ambassador thanked both for their support. The return and the objects' eventual repatriation are being handled in close coordination with the Department of Antiquities, which sits under Cyprus's Deputy Ministry of Culture.

The embassy's photograph of the meeting shows pottery laid out on a table: a jug and a small juglet painted with rings, both lying on their sides, a two-handled bowl on a low foot, and a few broken sherds beside a plastic bag. One of the men holds a further small object.

Sweden and Cypriot archaeology

Sweden's ties to Cypriot archaeology go back almost a century. Between 1927 and 1931 the Swedish Cyprus Expedition, led by Einar Gjerstad, dug some 21 sites across Cyprus, covering every period from the Neolithic to Roman times. Its finds were divided in 1930 with the agreement of the British colonial authorities, on the rule that no tomb group or deposit would be split, and about two-thirds of the nearly 18,000 objects went to Sweden. The expedition's story, and what became of the sites, is told in The Swedish Cyprus Expedition and What It Left Behind.

Part of a run of private returns

The Stockholm handover is the latest of several in which holders of old private collections, usually heirs, have given Cypriot antiquities back of their own accord. In May 2023, 36 objects came from private individuals in Australia. In July 2024 the heir of a German who had worked at his country's embassy in Cyprus in the 1960s returned 37 vessels and lamps from Stuttgart, after contacting the Cypriot embassy in Berlin, and on 30 November 2024 an heir living in Austria handed over 69 objects in Vienna. On 1 June this year Greece gave back 48 antiquities from the collection of the late ambassador Christos Zacharakis, whose heirs had asked that they go home.

Auction houses have played a part in many of these cases. Between December 2025 and June 2026, 25 antiquities came back in eight handovers after the Department spotted them in online sales abroad, six of them once the saleroom had withdrawn the lot. In Stockholm the auctioneer's part was to recognise the objects and help the family return them. The full series since 2023 is set out in repatriations, 2023 to 2026, and the rules under which antiquities left Cyprus lawfully until 1996 in the legal export of Cypriot antiquities.

A gift to Cyprus is one lawful choice for a family holding Cypriot objects. The steps are short: photographs and whatever history survives, a first message to the Department or the nearest Cypriot embassy, and a handover when invited, as the guide to returning or donating Cypriot antiquities explains. Other options, including sale in specific circumstances, are set out in collecting Cypriot antiquities today.

The five objects from Stockholm are now with the embassy, pending their repatriation to Cyprus.