The Boston Museum of Fine Arts has returned two works of art to the Kingdom of Benin, which is in its collection.
MFA Advisory Board member Dr. Arese Carrington coordinated the transfer and coordination, and he called the event in a statement “very important.”
“These two artifacts are returning to the real, proper owners and then to where they have cultural and spiritual value,” she said.
Clay and iron Memorial head Bronze from the 16th or 17th and 16th centuries Relief plaque shows two officials using raised swords In 1897, British soldiers were plundered by British soldiers when they attacked the Historical Kingdom of Benin (Nigeria’s present-day city of Benin).
According to the museum, the source of potters and iron sculptures can be traced back to the London art market in 1899, “when the dealer William Cutter sold it to another dealer William Downing Webster, and other works of art from Benin.” Relief plaque It can be traced directly to the British army leading the attack in 1897 and later the Crown Agent of the Niger Coast Protectorate, who sold the attack in 1898.
Both items were purchased by British archaeologist Augustus Pitt-Rivers at the museum of the same name in Farnham, England, which was closed in the 1960s and its collection was subsequently dispersed. Art collector Robert Owen Lehman Jr. donated Memorial head and Relief plaque Arrived in Boston in 2013 and 2018.
The museum previously admitted that many of the items in Lehman’s collection were “purchased at public auctions and dealers, dating back to the 1897 attack on Benin.”
June 27, Memorial head and Relief plaque His Royal Highness was presented to his royal highness at the ceremony held in the Nigerian Building in New York City, his prince told Itegboje, Ambassador of the Nigerian Embassy.
“The National Council of Museums and Monuments, in partnership with the Nigerian Embassy Washington, DC, will own both works and coordinate their handling, care, transition to Nigeria and deliver to the OBA in Benin,” the museum said.
Abubakar Jidda, HE Ambassador of the Consul General of Nigeria, New York, also attended the repatriation ceremony on June 27. MATTHEW TEITELBAUM, director of ANN and GRAHAM GUND of MFA; Pierre Terjanian, head of curator and conservation of MFA; Victoria Reed, senior curator of MFA. Some members of the Benin community in New York were also present in the reward.
Boston MFA closed the Benin Kingdom Gallery in April. In Lehman Jr. almost all items are returned to Lehman Jr.
The museum also notes that Lehman Jr. “They date back to the European and American art markets in the second half of the 20th century and are not sure when or how they left Benin. Research on these objects is underway.”
Lehman J.
