On the 18th of February 1897 (124 years ago), thousands of Benin artifacts were looted by British forces during a violent raid in the ancestral Benin kingdom.
The Benin Bronzes are more than a thousand metal plaques and sculptures that decorated the Kingdom of Benin royal palace.
These plaques and sculptures are the art from the Kingdom of Benin or Edo Empire (1440–1897), a pre-colonial state located in what is now the South-South region of Nigeria.
Benin Bronzes are actually carved elephant tusks, ivory leopard statues and wooden heads. The most famous items are 900 brass plaques, dating mainly from the 16th and 17th centuries, once nailed to Benin’s royal palace pillars.
The Bronze Head of Queen Idia.
There are at least 3,000 items scattered worldwide, maybe thousands more. No one’s entirely sure.
To date, two hundred of the pieces were taken to the British Museum, London, while the rest of the artifacts found their way to other museums.
One can find Benin artifacts in many of the West’s great museums, including the British Museum in London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. They’re in smaller museums, too. The Lehman, Rockefeller, Ford and de Rothschild families have owned some. So did Pablo Picasso. ( Isn’t that interesting?)
The art was appreciated in Europe at first sight in the 1890s. Curators at the British Museum compared them at that time with the best of Italian and Greek sculpture.
Initially, it appeared incredible that people “supposedly so primitive and savage” were responsible for such highly developed objects.
Currently, the artifacts still leave people awestruck. Neil MacGregor, the British Museum’s former director, has called them “great works of art” and “triumphs of metal casting.”
A pendant mask at the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
After pressure from various individuals and organizations for the return of the artifacts, there appears to be a ray of hope.
Benin’s royal family and the Nigerian local and national governments plan to open a museum in Benin City in 2023 with at least 300 Benin Bronzes.
Those pieces will come mainly from the collections of 10 major European museums, such as the Humboldt Forum in Berlin, the Weltmuseum in Vienna and the British Museum. They will initially be on loan for three years, with the possibility to renew. Or, when those loans run out, other Benin Bronzes could replace them. The museum could become a rotating display of the kingdom’s art.
This huge initiative, organized through the Benin Dialogue Group, is celebrated as a chance for people in Nigeria to see part of their cultural heritage.
“I want people to be able to understand their past and see who we were,” said Godwin Obaseki, Governor of Edo State, home to Benin City, and a key figure in the project.
Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki.
This plan has been inundated with criticism and praises. There have been calls for a full-scale return rather than a new museum filled with loaned artifacts and art.
Some pieces stolen in the raid have gone back to Nigeria from institutions. In the 1950s, the British Museum sold several plaques to Nigeria for a planned museum in Lagos and sold others on the open market. But those were not the free, and full-scale returns are what people call for now.
The British Museum and the Nigerian authorities have also announced a $4 million archaeology project to excavate the planned museum site and other parts of Benin City to uncover ancient remains, including parts of the city walls.
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REFERENCES:
- New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/arts/design/benin-bronzes.html#:~:text=The%20various%20artifacts%20we%20call,pillars%20in%20Benin’s%20royal%20palace.)
- Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_of_the_Kingdom_of_Benin)
- Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benin_Bronzes)
- https://www.tropenmuseum.nl/nl/press-statement-meeting-benin-dialogue-group-1
