Yesterday on its web site, the New York Times published a story by Jori Finkel (coming out in print Sunday) questioning what will come of the undercover federal investigation that recently resulted in the raiding of four Southern California museums, including LACMA.

The investigation could also have broad implications for other museums across the country. In the affidavits filed to obtain search warrants, the agents laid the groundwork for a legal argument that virtually all Ban Chiang material in the United States is stolen property.

Finkel reported that this property is held at numerous museums who weren’t part of the original California investigation, but to whom the potential legal and ethical implications apply. The known museums include the Metropolitan in New York; the Freer and Sackler Galleries in D.C.; the MFA in Boston; the Cleveland Museum of Art; the Minneapolis Institute of Arts; and the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco.

Seattle Art Museum is noted for its holdings in Asian art, so I called the museum yesterday to see whether it has any objects from the Ban Chiang settlement, the earliest known Bronze Age site in Southeast Asia.

Just one, according to SAM spokeswoman Cara Egan: an unglazed ceramic ritualistic funerary jar bought at an auction in New Haven, Conn., in an unknown year, and donated by that buyer to SAM in 1973 (it was accessioned to the collection in 1974).

It has never been on view, according to Egan.

A single pot is nothing compared to the dozens of objects held at other museums (and these pieces are not valuable on the level of the multi-million-dollar Klimts repatriated through Austria, for instance). But a stolen object is no less stolen for being alone and relatively unprecious.

The complication, however, is in determining whether to even classify these works as stolen. No indictments have been made yet in the Southern California cases. The case put together by the federal investigators relies on various laws that appear to have been variously applied. It’s a mess, more or less.

Finkel cites a law professor urging all museums that hold Ban Chiang objects to review their holdings, “for ethical if not legal” reasons. But Finkel also cites a different law professor: “The whole thing could be dropped altogether because of insufficient evidence or because they are feeling weak about their legal theories, or this could move forward into an important, precedent-setting case.”

WWMGD? (What would Mimi Gates [SAM director] do?)

Gates was already out of the office when I called to put the question to her today; she’ll be available for comment Tuesday, and I’ll update then.