The Wereldmuseum in Leiden is preparing to return 113 ancient sculptures to Nigeria, as pressure mounts on Western governments and institutions to hand back the spoils of the colonial era.
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The Dutch museum has removed 113 Benin bronzes from display and is restoring them, ahead of shipping them back to Lagos in June.
The bronzes were looted from the ancient Kingdom of Benin, in modern-day Nigeria, more than 120 years ago by British colonisers.
The Netherlands agreed to return 119 Benin bronze statues to Nigeria in February.
“These don’t belong here. They were violently taken, so they need to go back,” museum director Marieke van Bommel told French news agency AFP. “This is a typical example of looted art.”
Netherlands agrees to return 119 Benin statues to Nigeria
Setting an example
While the majority of these 19th-century African sculptures remain in France and the UK, van Bommel hopes the Dutch example will be noted around the world.
“I think we all agree that this collection doesn’t belong in European museums. We do hope that other countries will follow this example,” she said.
According to her, the collection is priceless: “It’s a cultural value, so we never put a price on it.”
The museum in Leiden has also restored hundreds of pieces of colonial loot to Indonesia (a former Dutch colony), Mexico and the United States.
It is currently showing an exhibition entitled Our Colonial Inheritance, which examines Dutch colonial history in Indonesia, Suriname, Curaçao and Sint Maarten, among other countries.
“Colonialism is not a thing of the past,” the exhibition text reads. “It has shaped the world: our physical, mental and personal world. Colonialism lives on to this day.”
Van Bommel said they had struck a deal with Nigeria to retain four of the bronzes on loan, so visitors can continue to learn from their story.
“We want to talk about the expedition, but also about the whole subject of restitution,” she explained.
Former Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari declared in 2023 that the returned works would be given to the Oba, the traditional ruler of the kingdom, and not to the Nigerian state.
Plans are taking shape to build a museum in Benin City, Nigeria, where the bronzes will take pride of place.
A violent history
The story of the theft of the Benin bronzes began in 1897, when nine British military officers were killed on a trade mission to the Kingdom of Benin, in the south of present-day Nigeria.
The UK deployed a military expedition to avenge the death of its officers, with British troops killing several thousand locals and torching Benin’s capital city. They also looted the royal palace, stealing hundreds of artworks – including the Benin bronzes.
Most were auctioned off or sold to finance the expedition, to museums across Europe and the US.
Now, 128 years later, Nigeria is negotiating their return, with mixed degrees of success.
The Netherlands has agreed to return 119 bronzes in total (with six coming from Rotterdam in addition to the 113 from Leiden) and Germany has also begun restitution.
Beyond Nigeria, a growing number of African countries have called for works of art and priceless artefacts to be returned, including the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Egypt, Ghana, Ethiopia and Benin – to which France agreed to return 127 treasures this year.
How an RFI investigation helped return an ancient treasure to Benin
Belgium has also agreed to hand over an inventory of 84,000 Congolese artefacts dating from the colonial period to the government of the DRC – but their return has not taken place yet.
However, the British Museum in London continues to refuse to return any of its famed collection, due to a law passed in 1963 which technically prevents the museum from giving back the treasures in its possession.
(with AFP)
