The German Foreign Minister will return to Nigeria twenty looted bronze artefacts of the old kingdom of Benin, during a visit to the country from December 18 to 20
The German Foreign Minister will return to Nigeria twenty bronze artifacts of the old kingdom of Benin, which were looted during the colonial period, during her visit to that country from December 18 to 20, the German Foreign Ministry announced today.
The Benin Bronzes are among the most famous sculptures of African art. They were crafted between the 16th and 18th centuries and adorned the royal palace of the Kingdom of Benin, in present-day southwestern Nigeria. After the looting of this country by the British, at the end of the 19th century, they were scattered in many European museums.
An agreement was reached on July 1 between Berlin and the Nigerian government after years of negotiations for the return of works of art housed in 20 German museums.
The museums to which these returns concern are the Linden in Stuttgart, the Grassi in Leipzig, the MARKK in Hamburg, the Rauten-Gest Museum in Cologne, as well as the Ethnological Museum in Berlin.
The Berlin Ethnological Museum alone has 530 historical objects from the old kingdom of Benin, including 440 bronzes, considered the most important collection after that of the British Museum in London.
The return of these works to Nigeria “shows how seriously Germany takes the memory of its colonial past,” Burger said.
The initiative is part of a series of measures taken recently by Germany in its bid to take responsibility for crimes from the colonial period, such as the official recognition in May 2021 of a genocide it had committed in Namibia.
The looting of these bronze artefacts, which are among the most famous African works, had taken place in the old kingdom of Benin in southern Nigeria.
Today they are in museums and private collections in the US and Europe, and the Nigerian government is negotiating their return.
Most of the objects had been looted in 1897, when a British expedition had attacked and destroyed Benin City, taking thousands of ivory and metal sculptures in the process.
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