Ideas and Forms in Art: Stories on Love, War & Industry, and Women: A Gould Center Passion Project

Benin Bronzes

I remember two things about this piece from high school. These two things speak volumes as to what has happened in the world since its creation. 
  1. The piece is held at the British Museum. It is with others like it, controversially unreturned to its place of origin. 
  2. The Europeans originally thought the people of Benin got the plaques from trade with the Greeks because of the sophisticated lost wax casting technique used with bronze. 
 
I have included an article from the British Museum that goes into depth about where the “Benin Bronzes” are from and how the British owns them today.¹ In summary, the Kingdom of Benin was overrun by British forces during the scramble for Africa. It was no longer independent. During the conflict, British forces killed many chiefs of the Kingdom of Benin and looted shrines and palaces. They took far more than these bronze plaques. The British Museum shared:

In the autumn of 1897, the British Museum displayed 304 Benin plaques on loan from the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and subsequently petitioned successfully to receive 203 of these as a donation. The majority of the remaining plaques were sold to UK and German museums and to private dealers, while a few were retained by the Foreign Office. Other early collections were purchased or donated by members of the Benin expedition. 

At that point, the Benin bronzes had been displaced like many of the people of Africa. To be fair, the British Museum has done an excellent job of maintaining the Bronzes. The Museum seeks to continue to return the Bronzes to museums in Nigeria and along the gold coast so long as the Bronzes can be returned. The Bronzes are sacred, but it is likely that if they remained untouched, they would not be in a museum. These plaques would still be on the walls of palaces illustrating the great lineage and beliefs of the Benin people. Many of west and south African origin and descent protest the illegitimate British hold of sacred property.


¹ “Benin Bronzes.” The British Museum, 2021, www.britishmuseum.org/about-us/british-museum-story/objects-news/benin-bronzes.

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