Original Story Published by: Hannah McGivern for The Art Newspaper, www.theartnewspaper.com
Photo Source: National Gallery of Art
(Above) The mid-18th century sculpture was looted from the court of Benin in 1897
The National Gallery of Art (NGA), the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art (NMAA) and the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) held ajoint ceremony today (11 October) in Washington, DC, to mark the return of 31 Benin bronzes from their respective collections to Nigeria, marking te latest milestone in a growing movement to return the looted treasures.
The repatriation ceremony took place this morning behind closed doors at the NMAA, where 13 Benin objects have featured in a farewell display for the past two weeks. Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM) will now assume ownership of 29 artefacts that were deaccessioned earlier this year from the Smithsonian collections, including brass plaques, commemorative heads and figures.
The NGA had repatriated a sculpture of a cockerel following a vote held in 2020 by its board of trustees to deaccession the work. The sculpture – the only Benin bronze in the museum’s collection – was first acquired by a British merchant who worked in Nigeria and consigned the piece to Sotheby’s London in 1954. It entered the museum’s collection in 1955 via donors who acquired the piece through the New York-based dealer John J. Klejman.
The cockerel was one of approximately 10,000 artefacts stolen by British troops from the royal palace in Benin in 1897. The pieces were dispersed throughout the world and, in the decades that followed, several were acquired by or donated to US museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Chicago’s Field Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and others.
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