The Horniman Museum in London announced it on Sunday August 7. He is preparing to return these brass plaques and other objects looted by British troops in 1897, in the former kingdom of Benin, located south of Edo State, in present-day Nigeria. This restitution revives the debate which agitates the cultural institutions of the whole world with, on the one hand, the African countries which claim their due and on the other, the Western museums which refuse to see their collections being emptied.
Among the works and objects are 12 brass plaques, known as “Benin bronzes”, or ceremonial objects in ivory and brass, objects of daily life such as fans and baskets, as well as than a key “to the king’s palace”.
90 to 95% of Africa’s artistic and cultural heritage can be found outside the continent, in museums around the world. This is the figure included in the report by Felwine Sarr and Bénédicte Savoy, commissioned by French President Emmanuel Macron in 2018.
At the end of July, during his tour of the continent, the Head of State once again promised to return to Benin works looted by France in the 19th century. Restitutions that are not to the taste of all Western museums such as the British Museum in London or the Quai-Branly museum in Paris.
Many cultural institutions in large cities are on the brakes. In question, according to them, the risk of seeing their collections empty as restitutions are made.
But one figure must be quoted, according to Dan Hicks, curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum and author of a book on “Benin Bronzes” in the UK called “The Bruthish Museum”. In the case of British museums where a not insignificant part of the “Benin bronzes” is held, less than 1% of these objects taken under colonialism are exhibited.
They are in the reserves, without being listed in a documentation base. Some are locked away in boxes that have not been opened for over a century.
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