Benin Bronzes

Hamburg shows its Benin artefacts before restituting them to Nigeria

Ethnological museum in the port city has one of Germany's largest collections of Benin treasures

Museums and heritage in 2021: pandemic woes and African treasures

We look back on a year of museums commandeered as Covid-19 vaccine centres, masterpieces sold as NFTs and much talk over the Benin bronzes

At a Cambridge University college wrestling with its imperial past, Shahzia Sikander’s show offers new ideas on restitution

As Jesus College confronts its ties to slavery, the Pakistani Neo-miniature artist asks whether decolonisation need necessarily be a violent process

National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC plans to return looted Benin cockerel to Nigeria

The museum is “eager to work with the relevant parties in Nigeria” to restitute the sculpture

The Met repatriates looted Benin works

Two 16th century brass plaques and a 14th century Ife head have been returned to Nigeria

Oxford University lists 145 looted Benin objects in collections

The director of the Pitt Rivers Museum says the report is a step in the restitution process

Smithsonian Museum of African Art removes Benin bronzes from display and plans to repatriate them

“We cannot build for the future without making our best effort at healing the wounds of the past,” the museum’s director says

Cambridge University college becomes first UK institution to return looted Benin bronze to Nigeria

Following restitution of a cockerel sculpture by Jesus College, the University of Aberdeen will hand over another looted artefact in a ceremony today

Looted African works that France has promised to return to Benin will be shown in Paris museum for one last time

The exhibition Benin: the Restitution of 26 Works from the Royal Treasures of Abomey at Musée du quai Branly–Jacques Chirac will be on view for five days in October

Berlin museums board agrees to relinquish Benin bronzes 'regardless of how they were acquired'

The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation aims for the first restitutions to Nigeria next year, requests “detailed timetable” for negotiations

Will the Queen return her Benin bronze? How the African treasure was looted not once, but twice

The 17th-century oba head was plucked from the Nigerian National Museum and given to Elizabeth II as a thank-you gift

The Met will return two Benin Bronzes to Nigeria

The Benin Court plaques donated in 1991 with more than 150 other works, have been deaccessioned, while a third object, an Ife Head offered for purchase, will instead be restituted

Germany launches African museum exchange programme to discuss returning looted objects

New government initiative MuseumsLab aims to foster more international co-operation and consider topics including decolonisation and restitution

German museums to receive up to €25,000 for research into their Benin bronzes ahead of restitutions next year

Grants are available for institutions with individual Benin artefacts or small collections

Germany pledges to return Benin bronzes to Nigeria starting in 2022

“We are facing up to our historical and moral responsibility”, says culture minister Monika Grütters

Scottish university claims Benin bronze bought for £750 is worth £500,000—but is that now really the case?

Aberdeen University is returning its looted 18th-century oba head to the Nigerian federal government

Global survey: where in the world are the Benin bronzes?

Around 160 institutions hold looted Benin artefacts, but how many are prepared to give them back? We asked museums in five countries for their position on restitution

'We've had a lot of museums reaching out': how Nigeria is getting ready to receive the world’s Benin bronzes

With institutions across the globe rethinking their views on restitution, the African country’s focus is now on making a home for its heritage

UCLA’s Fowler Museum to reach out to Nigeria about returning its Benin bronzes

As restitution momentum builds, director of Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art says it could lead discussions for the return of looted Benin objects in US museum collections

London’s Horniman Museum—home to 15 Benin bronzes—announces new ‘transparent procedures’ for looted object requests

South London museum has released new policies on restitution but says it will need to seek legal advice about the right to return artefacts

Exhibitionsinterview

Humboldt Forum to show Britain’s 1897 violence and plunder in Benin exhibition next year

The exhibition will include around half of Berlin’s collection of Benin bronzes as Germany lays groundwork to return them to Nigeria

Podcastspodcast

Benin bronzes: looted treasures will return to Nigeria at last

Plus, the newly discovered Van Gogh is sold and artist Rana Begum on Tess Jaray

Hosted by Ben Luke and Aimee Dawson. with guest speakers Catherine Hickley and Martin Bailey. Produced by Julia Michalska, David Clack and Henrietta Bentall

German culture minister seeks 'national strategy' on Benin bronzes, including restitution

Monika Grütters says she will meet museum directors and trustees next month

University of Aberdeen to return Benin bronze looted by British troops to Nigeria

The sculpture of an oba’s head was “acquired in a way that we now consider to have been extremely immoral,” the university says

‘The movement is unstoppable’: African scholars and activists hail German plan to return Benin bronzes

“There is simply no moral ground for the confiscation of African artefacts in Western museums,” says the Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe

Britain stole the royal, sacred Benin Bronzes from Nigeria—so why is Germany leading their return?

Germany's plans to return the artefacts are just the beginning of a necessary undoing of the art world's white infrastructure

Germany moves towards full restitution of Benin bronzes

The head of the German foreign ministry’s culture department visited Nigeria last week for discussions with the Edo State Governor

Dresden poster campaign draws attention to looted Benin bronzes in city’s museum

Initiative by the Nigerian artist Emeka Ogboh is supported by Dresden’s state museums

Podcastspodcast

Is the future of museums in Africa?

We speak to museum experts András Szántó and Sonia Lawson. Plus, Dan Hicks on the legacy of colonial looting and National Gallery curator Christopher Riopelle on the Polish painter Jan Matejko

Hosted by Ben Luke. Produced by Julia Michalska, David Clack and Aimee Dawson