All posts tagged: Bronzes

Three Swiss Museums Return Trove of Benin Bronzes to Nigeria

Three Swiss Museums Return Trove of Benin Bronzes to Nigeria

Published by Jenni Sidey

Three Swiss museums have returned 18 royal and religious artifacts from the Kingdom of Benin to Nigeria, marking another significant repatriation of the so-called Benin Bronzes. A handover ceremony took place today at the University of Zurich between Swiss Federal Councillor Elisabeth Baume-Schneider and Nigeria’s Minister of Culture, Hannatu Musa Musawa. The university returned 14 objects from its Ethnographic Museum, while two additional Benin Bronzes came from Museum Rietberg Zurich and another two from the Musée d’Ethnographie de Genève.  Related Articles The Benin Bronzes refer to the approximately 5,000 bronze sculptures, ceremonial objects, and ivory carvings looted by British forces from the Kingdom of Benin, in what is now Nigeria, during the 1897 punitive expedition. Scattered across museums and private collections worldwide via illicit channels, the bronzes have become emblematic of efforts by formerly colonized countries to reclaim cultural heritage, as well as the broader—and often contentious—debate over the ethics of ethnographic collections.  Among the artifacts returned by Switzerland is a Benin Eroro, a four-sided ceremonial bell that played a central role in royal rites, …

Zurich Transfers Ownership of Looted Benin Bronzes to Nigeria

Zurich Transfers Ownership of Looted Benin Bronzes to Nigeria

Published by José Betancourt

Switzerland’s Museum Rietberg has transferred ownership of 11 looted artifacts to Nigeria, according to the city of Zurich, which oversees the museum. They are just a few of the estimated thousands of works of art taken when British forces raided Edo, the capital of the Kingdom of Benin (now Edo state in modern-day Nigeria), in 1897. Dispersed among collections in the West, these objects have been the focus of a long—and in recent years, highly publicized—effort to retrieve them on the part of the Nigerian government. Though known as collectively as the Benin Bronzes, the artifacts, which date from the 16th to the 19th centuries, were fashioned in a variety of materials, including wood, ivory, brass, and bronze. All were looted from Edo’s royal palace, which was ransacked during the British raid. Related Articles The objects returned by the Rietberg include a commemorative bronze head from around 1850 depicting the ancestor of a chief, and an ivory tusk that tells the story of a king, or oba, of the 17th or 18th century. Both would …