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Germany commits to return part of its Benin bronzes

2021-05-04T09:04:44.586Z


Unpublished, these restitutions were announced by the German Minister of Culture Monika Grütters. If their exact magnitude remains to be clarified, they should take place as early as 2022.


It is a historic first step.

More than 120 years after the sacking of the royal palace in Edo (now Benin City, Nigeria), a European country undertakes to return some of the Benin bronzes looted in 1897. The announcement, Thursday 29th April, by the German Minister of Culture Monika Grütters, spoke at the end of a digital conference which brought together all the cultural institutions concerned by the question of the return of objects looted during the colonial era.

This ended with the unprecedented decision to implement, from 2022,

“substantial restitution”

.

Read also: The Humboldt Forum in Berlin plans to return its collection of bronzes from Benin

“We face our historical and moral responsibility to illuminate and take responsibility for Germany's colonial past

,

Monika Grütters said in a statement at the end of last week. Committing to specify the concrete timetable for the exchanges to come by the end of June, the German minister underlined the important milestone represented by the particular case of the restitution of these bronzes vis-à-vis all the colonial collections. from the country.

"The case of the Benin bronzes is a touchstone for the treatment by Germany of collections from colonial contexts, which is also the subject of international attention"

, said the ministry's statement.

On a more symbolic register, Monika Grütters also expressed the wish that the strong gesture of the German government will contribute to a better relationship with the former groups and colonized countries, with which the German museums have started a close scientific collaboration.

"We wish to contribute to understanding and reconciliation with the descendants of the peoples who were robbed of their cultural treasures during the colonial era,"

said the Minister.

Open the way

The German approach was praised by contemporary Nigerian artist Victor Ehikhamenor, who participates in the Legacy Restoration Trust, the independent body supposed to receive historical objects returned to Nigeria.

“This is a big step towards righting wrongs, especially coming from a country that has been a colonizing superpower

,” he said in an interview with the

Guardian

.

Germany has paved the way for other Western countries trying to find the right way to deal with restitution cases ”

. More cautious, the German historian Jürgen Zimmerer, specialist in colonization, indicated that he was waiting to discover the precise contours of these restitutions before claiming victory.

“Instead of making an unconditional commitment to return all the looted works of art, it was only a question of returning a vague“ substantial ”share

, he reminded the British daily.

How this part is determined, and by whom, it has not been specified ”

. One of the points that must be discussed concerns the question of

"the way in which bronzes from Benin can continue to be exhibited in Germany"

, in the words of the German press release.

Nearly 1,100 Benin bronzes are now kept in various German institutions, including 440 pieces in the only Ethnology Museum in Berlin. A part - which remains to be defined - of these objects should eventually join the Edo Museum of West African Art ( "

Edo Museum of West African Art

") in Benin City. Designed by architect David Adjaye, this future great Nigerian historical and archaeological museum should open its doors in 2025.

"Many museums have contacted us"

, confided in an interview with

The Art Newspaper

Phillip Ihenacho, director of the Legacy Restoration Trust, also in charge of the future museum.

"Many of them want to discuss renditions with us, and feel that there is an urgency on this subject

.

"

Read also: Restitution of African works: "There is no question of emptying the great museums"

The bulk of restitutions are yet to come

A little over a month after the visit of a German delegation to Nigeria - where the lands of the former kingdom of Benin are located - the decision to return the bronzes comes in the midst of a debate in Germany on the modalities of constitution of the important African collections kept in several institutions of the country.

The inauguration of the Humboldt Forum, which exhibits in the center of Berlin the collections of the Museum of Asian Art and the Museum of Ethnology of the federal capital, has thus raised many discussions in recent months on the colonial origin of the very many objects supposed to be exposed there.

Read also: Emmanuel Macron procrastinates on the issue of restitution of works of art to Africa

Looted in 1897 during a punitive British expedition to the heart of the kingdom of Benin, thousands of bronze plaques and statues have been disseminated for more than a century in the world's collections. The majority of these objects remain however preserved in the United Kingdom, within 45 institutions of which the British Museum, which alone holds more than 900 bronzes of Benin. The largest museum across the Channel has refused for a long time to discuss restitution, and confines itself to recalling that the historical context - "

the devastation and looting inflicted on Benin City by the British military expedition

" - is well mentioned. in its various mediation mechanisms.

Despite the inflexibility of the museum, awareness of the history of part of the colonial collections is gaining ground in the country. An auction of bronzes from Benin was canceled last week in Sussex, while the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, announced at the end of March its intention to return to Nigeria a bronze head "

acquired from a way that we consider today to be extremely immoral

», In the words of the director of collections. As for France, a symbolic restitution of twenty objects in Senegal and Benin has been officially launched. Submitted to the President of the Republic in 2018, the report by historians Bénédicte Savoy and Felwine Sarr had identified that nearly 46,000 of the 70,000 objects kept at the Quai Branly Museum were acquired during the colonial era, between 1885-1960.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2021-05-04

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