US museum returns two Benin Bronzes to Nigeria

The Museum of Fine Arts in the US city of Boston has returned two of the famed Benin Bronzes to Nigeria, authorities in the West African nation said late on Monday.

The move represents “the return of a huge part of Nigeria’s history,” Olugbile Holloway, the head of Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM), said.

“As much as this occasion is symbolic to Benin, it is also symbolic to Nigeria’s struggle,” he added.

The Benin Bronzes are hundreds of sculptures and plaques that were looted from the royal palace in the Kingdom of Benin, part of modern-day Nigeria, after British forces captured Benin City in 1897.

The priceless artworks, believed to have been crafted in Benin starting in the 1500s, were taken as spoils of war and today are scattered in museums and private collections across the world.

Western museums, including those in Britain, the Netherlands and Germany, have returned several hundred of the artefacts, but hundreds more are believed to be still missing.

Benin’s traditional rulers and Nigerian authorities have for years been negotiating their return.

Calling the returns from the Boston museum a “historic moment”, Nigeria’s culture minister, Hannatu Musa Musawa, said those “conversations” were ongoing “and soon, the process of returning them all to their rightful owners will begin.”

The Benin Bronzes have been a source of tension within Nigeria, with Benin’s traditional ruler, the Oba, insisting that the artefacts belong to him as the ruler of Benin and the descendant of the royal family from whose palace they were plundered.

Benin authorities fear that the newly constructed Museum of West African Arts (MOWAA) in Benin City would be in charge of the artworks. The museum’s leaders have denied that this was their intention.

Last week, Britain and South Africa returned to a Ghanaian traditional king over 130 gold and bronze artefacts taken between the 1870s and the early 20th century, his palace announced.

Asante king Otumfuo Osei Tutu II received the artefacts at the Manhyia Palace Museum in the Asante capital Kumasi on Sunday, a royal statement said.

The items included royal regalia, drums and ceremonial gold weights and depict governance systems, spiritual beliefs and the role of gold in Asante society.

Their return comes as pressure mounts on Western museums and institutions to address the restitution of African artefacts plundered by colonial powers such as Britain, France, Germany and Belgium.

At the ceremony, the Asante king thanked AngloGold Ashanti, a South African mining company, for returning several items purchased on the open market. The mining giant returned some artefacts to Ghana in 2024.

The latest repatriation included 110 artefacts from the Barbier-Muller Museum collection in Geneva, assembled by collector Josef Muller in 1904.

Twenty-five other items were donated by British art historian Hermione Waterfield, who established the Tribal Art Department at Christie’s in 1971.

According to art historian and Manhyia Palace Museum director Ivor Agyeman-Duah, Waterfield’s gifts included a wooden drum believed to have been seized during the 1900 siege of Kumasi by British forces.

In 2024, the Manhyia Palace Museum received 67 restituted or loaned cultural objects from institutions including London’s British Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum and the Fowler Museum in Los Angeles.