Amid tight security, the Palace of the Governors this week returned a collection of pre-Columbian art that a decade ago created an international controversy about looted antiquities.

A display of Spanish colonial devotional art titled "Tesoros de Devoción," or Treasures of Devotion, will replace the old exhibit, titled "Art of Ancient America." The state bought the 263-piece collection of bultos, penitente cristos, retablos and tin housewares from the widow of Taos collector Larry Frank for $3 million last year.

The pre-Columbian art collected by John Bourne has been housed at the Palace since 1998. The exhibit closed Monday.

For a number of years, museum officials courted Bourne, hoping he would donate his collection to the state. In 1995, he gave a golden monkey's head and a Panamanian pectoral disc to the Palace. They were first displayed in 1996, then combined with other pieces from his collection including two ear spools and a golden rattle.

"We really feel fortunate we had the opportunity to exhibit the collection for this period of time. It was a wonderful exhibit for us," said Palace director Frances Levine.

In 1997, Bourne pledged to give the museum the entire collection, valued at $2 million and described by author Roger Atwood, in Stealing History: Tomb Raiders, Smugglers, and the Looting of the Ancient World, as "among the finest small collections of pre-Columbian art anywhere," under several conditions including completion of a gallery to house it. Bourne later withdrew his offer, citing delays in building the new history museum, which is under construction behind the Palace.

Pieces from the collection on display at the Palace came under scrutiny in 1998 when a visiting archaeologist saw the monkey's head and other pieces and suggested they had been looted from Sipán, an important Peruvian archaeological site and the center of the Moche culture. He contacted the FBI.

FBI agents met with Bourne and with Tom Chávez, then director of the Palace, and confiscated the monkey's head, the ear spools and the rattle, citing the National Stolen Property Act.

A leading Peruvian archaeologist examined the objects, along with other experts on the Moche culture. They disagreed over whether the monkey's head was Sipán or Mina, as Bourne claimed — which led to a decision by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Albuquerque not to prosecute. The objects were returned to the Palace in 2000.

Atwood, the author, maintained all four items had been looted from the Sipán archaeological region.

A 2005 story in The New Mexican reported museum officials still expected Bourne to donate his collection to the History Museum, and he had hired exhibition designers to create a new gallery. The officials said that the provenance, or ownership, of all objects would be researched.

But, Levine said, the new museum is moving in a different direction. Bourne's collection "really didn't fit with where we're going in the long run, which is the New Mexico history story," she said, and the Frank Collection fits more neatly into that plan.

"The 'Art of Ancient America' elevated the kinds of stories told in the Palace. I think 'Tesoro' is in the same very important realm of exhibition design and planning," Levine added.

Bourne, who apparently is interested in creating his own museum, could not be reached for comment.

Contact Anne Constable at 986-3022 or aconstable@sfnewmexican.com.