Benin Bronzes Council defends delay in handing over treasures
CFollowing discussions with the Legacy Restoration Trust in December, we are awaiting further information on next steps from the stakeholders in Nigeria Bristol City Council
OUNCIL chiefs in Bristol have defended the continued presence of two ‘Benin Bronzes’ in the city’s museum collection, which were almost certainly stolen from the royal palace of the west African empire.
The city council became the first in Britain to agree the stolen works of art should be given back to Nigeria, after a Prince of Benin made a direct appeal to the city for their return more than 18 months ago.
But after acknowledging more than a year ago that the bronze sculptures were stolen, they remain in the city’s main museum collection, and there is still no definite date for their return, or even firm confirmation they ever will be.
Bristol City Council said the latest delay was due to authorities in Nigeria. A spokesperson said the council is still waiting for “further information on next steps”, because the Nigerian authorities have plans for a new museum to exhibit Benin Bronzes that have already been returned to that country.
The Bristol City Museum has two Benin Bronzes almost certainly stolen by British colonial forces in 1897 when the British Army invaded Benin City – now in modern-day Nigeria – burned down the palace and stole the sculptures and artworks inside.
The Benin Bronzes are more than just bronze sculptures – in the Benin Empire, which dates back to the 1100s, they are the main way history and their rulers are recorded, and have been described as the ceremonial diaries of the Benin Empire’s long history.
More than 1,000 Benin Bronzes were looted by the British in 1897 and within just two months were being sold at auction houses in London by the Admiralty, to pay for the expedition which toppled the Oba, or King of Benin. Around 40 per cent of the Bronzes ended up in the British Museum in London, but many were distributed to museums and private collections around the country.
The city council said it obtained its main Benin Bronze sculpture, of an Oba, or King, in the 1950s, from the Cranmore Ethnographical Museum in Kent when it was exchanged for a Raratongan headdress from the Cook Islands.
The head of the museums service in Bristol said that they did not realise it was stolen when they received it decades ago.
The City Museum also has a Benin chief’s armlet in its collection, which dates back to at least the 19th century and could well have been part of the looting expedition of 1897.
On September 10 this year, Channel 4 broadcast its main news bulletin from Bristol Beacon, as part of its Black to Front initiative. The news broadcast’s main story was on the Benin Bronzes – one of which is said to be worth a million pounds on the open market – and an interview with Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden, who said he did not think Britain, the British Museum or other British institutions should return the Benin Bronzes to Nigeria.
In March 2020, Prince Edun Akenzua of the Royal Court of Benin called on Bristol to “set an example” and be the first museum to return its Benin Bronzes. The possibility of Bristol being the first museum in Britain to return a Benin Bronze ended in March this year, when a museum in Aberdeen announced it was returning its Benin Bronze “within weeks”, after the authorities there grew tired of waiting for the British Museum’s ‘Benin Dialogue Group.’
Neil Curtis, Aberdeen’s head of museums and special collections, said the Bronze, purchased in 1957, had been “blatantly looted.”
One of the reasons given for British institutions not returning their stolen items to Benin City is the claim Nigeria doesn’t have an appropriate setting in which to house them.
The British Museum, which holds hundreds of the sculptures, has formed a Benin Dialogue Group alongside several other museums to discuss displaying them in Benin City, some officially on loan. It has said discussions are ongoing.
The governor of Edo state, of which Benin City is the capital, plans to build a centre to store and study the returned artefacts by the end of 2021, and a permanent museum by 2025.
In July last year, Bristol City Council hinted it might return the Benin Bronzes and since then, Bristol’s museum bosses said they have been working with the authorities in Nigeria as part of the Benin Dialogue Group, and once Bristol has “established the level of agreement for their plans for a new museum”, they will begin to think about “an action plan for the future”.
A Bristol City Council spokesperson said: “We have been working with interested parties in Nigeria and those negotiating with them across Europe, as part of the Benin Dialogue Group. Following discussions with the Legacy Restoration Trust in December, we are awaiting further information on next steps from the stakeholders in Nigeria.
“Once we have established the level of agreement for their plans for a new museum, we will be able to progress with an action plan for the future of the artefact currently in Bristol.”