Nigerians offer to swap art for stolen bronzes

A GROUP of Nigerian artists is offering to provide the British Museum with new contemporary artworks in exchange for the return of the Benin Bronzes.

The Ahiamwen Guild of artists and bronze casters yesterday unveiled a number of artworks they are willing to trade for the ivory and brass artefacts looted by British soldiers in 1897. “We never stopped making the bronzes even after those ones were stolen,” said Osarobo Zeickner-okoro, a founding member of the guild. “I think we make them even better now.

“The descendants of the people who cast those bronzes, they’ve never seen that work because most of them can’t afford to fly to London to the British Museum,” he said. “They have these PDF copies of the catalogue from the British Museum, which they use to ref- erence the work of their ancestors, and I think it’s so sad.”

The British Museum holds about 900 Benin bronzes and had previously joined several other European institutions in a compromise that will see about 300 artefacts loaned back on a temporary basis.

The museum said the latest offer was a matter for discussion between itself and the parties offering the objects.