The Benin Bronzes in London

© David Gill

I have commented on the acquisition of the Benin Bronzes before (see here). The display of what can only be interpreted as plunder as a result of the 1897 Benin Punitive Expedition sits uncomfortably in an internationally important encyclopaedic museum. 

I feel unhappy with the emphasis presented by Tiffany Jenkins (p.288):

In some circumstances ... the very sculptures and plaques that some would like to see returned to Nigeria were made from the proceeds of slavery, exchanged for men and women. Are these artefacts tainted by how the material was acquired?

She somehow seeks to justify the continued presence of the bronzes in London by looking back over the centuries to the context for how these works of art were created.

Johanna Hanink makes an important point about the Benin Bronzes in her review of Jenkins:

When not ignoring them outright, Jenkins over-simplifies, mocks, and dismisses the arguments in favor of artifact repatriation that detail the more abstract, lasting damage their (oftentimes violent) seizure caused.

Kwame Opoku adds in his important response to Jenkins:

Jenkins should be careful. If we apply her argument to Britain we could argue that Britain derived all her wealth from slavery and colonization and therefore all objects made in Britain, ignoring British industry, agriculture and manufacture, may be looted/stolen because they derived from slavery and colonization. Surely, this would be going too far. She should abandon this way of thinking which stretches ideas as far as possible to cover whatever view she shares even if the result is patently absurd.

If anything Jenkins has strengthened the cause for those who actively seek the return of cultural property.

Tiffany Jenkins on Cultural Property

(2016)

I am working my way through Tiffany Jenkins, Keeping their marbles: how the treasures of the past ended up in museums ... and why they should stay there (Oxford: OUP, 2016).

I will refrain from making my comments until I have finished but it is worth pointing out some of the reviews:

• Mark Fisher, The Spectator March 2016: "Her level-headed and balanced book -- which not only considers the role of museums in shaping our historical understanding, but notes the way museums are being transformed by an outstanding generation of contemporary architects -- is a valuable contribution to the international debate, and will enrich audiences and scholars for a long time to come."
• Kwame Opoku, Modern Ghana March 2016 [online]: "Jenkins, like many supporters of retention of artefacts of others, is very quick to argue that repatriating artefacts 'would be allowing modern-day sensibilities to rewrite history ' Seriously, does anybody believe that returning one Benin bronze to Benin is to rewrite history?"
• Robert Hewison, Apollo April 2016: "Jenkins sees the collapse of grand museological narratives as the sign of a 'post-ideological age', but this book is hardly ideology-free. Concluding with the explosion of museum building in the Gulf and China, she writes that 'money has replaced might'. Yet these museums are a physical manifestation of the geopolitical forces that once brought the marbles to London. It seems inconceivable at present, but Greece may yet get them back."
• Henrik Bering, WSJ 7 May 2016: "But for a poorly run country like Greece, what better way for the government to distract the population's attention than to engage in cultural warfare? From this perspective, says Ms. Jenkins, it is surely better that the marbles remain in Britain, so that the Greeks can continue to pose as much-wronged victims. Ms. Jenkins has produced a courageous and well-argued book; the howls you hear in the background are those of the contrition crowd."
• Vicky Allan, The Herald [Glasgow] 16 May 2016: "Jenkins sets her arguments out unflinchingly, yet with balance".
• Stefan Beck, The Weekly Standard June 2016: "This leads us, at last, to Jenkins's shrewdest and most devastating observation. Returning objects, and angrily demanding their return, serves today's great powers in much the same fashion that seizing those same objects served them centuries ago."
• Lucia Marcini, Minerva 24.4 (July / August 2016): "She asserts that large visitor numbers and easy access for researchers are important reasons why leading museums should hold on to their celebrated treasures even though they may be plunder".
• Sara Wajid, The Museums Journal 116.9 (September 2016) [online]
• Johanna Haninck (Brown University), BMCR December 2016 [online]. "And while I find myself wholly at odds with the politics of this book, it is also the task of the reviewer to judge whether an author succeeds, on her own terms, to make a credible and persuasive intervention on behalf of her positions. Jenkins does not. Despite the sensationalistic claims made in the introduction and in the splashy marketing material, Keeping Their Marbles contributes almost nothing to (and arguably even sets back) the broader, evolving, and ever more sophisticated conversation about critical heritage studies, which should be a matter of concern to everyone who reads BMCR. The book is a diatribe—and not a very well-researched, well-documented, or well-written one—that has been dressed, advertised, and reviewed as an authoritative monograph issued by one of our field’s flagship presses."

Cultural Property in a Global Perspective

Benin bronze in the British Museum © David Gill

Last night we attended the inaugural Robert Sainsbury Lecture at UEA in Norwich. It was delivered to a packed audience by Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, on the theme of “Art in a Global Perspective”.

MacGregor explored the theme of the encyclopedic museum noting parallel changes across different continents and cultures. He had a short discussion of the Benin bronzes, derived from the notorious punitive expedition,  and drew on the thinking of Kwame Anthony Appiah's essay in Cosmopolitanism. MacGregor adopted James Cuno's much criticised position when he suggested that cultural property can form part of the political agenda. He perhaps went a little too far when he suggested that cultural property "myths" or (to use his word) "untruths" were deliberately constructed to make the case for the return of cultural property. Such a suggestion in the case of the Benin bronzes belittles the horrendous "facts" of the Benin Punitive Expedition so clearly documented in The Times (London).

Only a Scot could have commented so wittily about the claims on the Lewis Chessmen by suggesting that Norway had yet to ask for their return.

The lecture itself was delivered with the usual passion and enthusiasm associated with MacGregor and his discussion was placed against the formation of the Sainsbury collection, that incidentally contains significant pieces of Cycladic sculpture.

Benin Mask Withdrawn from Sale

Last week I drew attention to the sale of a Benin mask at auction in London. It has now been announced that the mask will be withdrawn (Rob Sharp, "Sotheby's cancels sale of 'looted' Benin mask", Independent December 29, 2010).

Protests against the sale emerged on social networking sites last week. An online petition was organised by the Nigeria Liberty Forum, which describes itself as a "UK-based Nigerian pro-democracy group".

"They should seek good counsel and refrain from selling the mask," Orobosa Omo-Ojo, an official in the state government of Edo, which contains the modern city of Benin, told the press in Nigeria. "Anything that makes them ignore this call [from] the Edo state government will [make us] use this as a starting point to protect our intellectual properties."

This demonstrates that Sotheby's is responsive to concerns over long-standing cultural property issues. 

Benin Cultural Property at Auction

I have commented on Benin cultural property before. I do not wish to discuss the matter further here due to the holiday season but I draw the attention of readers to the post by S. Okwunodu Ogbechie.

"The great treasures of ancient art belong to no nation"

James Cuno's Who Owns Antiquity? has received a series of critical reviews.

Cuno has now responded on the Princeton University Press blog: "Where do the great treasures of ancient art belong?", January 27, 2009.

He poses the question:

“Where do the great treasures of ancient art belong? In Western museums or in countries where the civilizations that created them once flourished?”

Cuno considers the place of the bronze horses of San Marco in Venice, removed from Constantinople - and who knows where before then. But this is not an example of recent looting from an archaeological site.

A second historic example is provided by the Parthenon sculptures. Yet to turn from this monument to mount an attack on the motives of Greek claims on archaeological material shows a lack of rigour in Cuno's thinking. Is it "Greek nationalism" (as Cuno terms it) to ask for the return of a bronze sculpture, a funerary stele, a gold wreath, and a bronze krater that appear to have been looted in recent years? Are the requests driven by a desire to protect our universal cultural heritage? Yet he is silent on such returns.

Cuno returns to one of his favoured themes, the encyclopedic or universal museum:

Encyclopedic museums, like the British Museum or the Metropolitan Museum or the Art Institute of Chicago, serve as a force for understanding, tolerance, and the dissolution of ignorance and superstition about the world. They remind us of the connections that course through history and manifest themselves in the objects we prize for their beauty, eloquence, and fresh strangeness. They remind us that culture is always living culture, always changing the way we see the world, and always transforming us, ourselves, into the bargain.

Cuno forgets that such museums remind us of the collecting process (or "provenance" as some choose to describe it). The display of Benin bronzes in such museums reminds me, and I am sure others, of the African defenders of Benin city mown down by Maxim guns as British troops took part in the Benin Punitive Expedition. This does not fall into my definition of tolerance.

A second question introduced Cuno's piece - but is left unanswered.

The more vexing and urgent one — how can we prevent the looting of archaeological sites and the illicit trade in antiquities -– is not the topic of this article.

Yet this is exactly the question behind his second section which notes:

The government of Italy claims that all antiquities found within the borders of the modern state of Italy were made by cultures autonomous to the region.

Perhaps Cuno could have said that Italy has been asking for the return of antiquities (well over 100 at the last count) because they appear to have been looted from archaeological sites in the modern state of Italy since 1970. How could such pieces end up in prestigious public collections in North America?

How can we prevent looting, Cuno asks (even if he does not want to answer it here)? How can we prevent the illicit trade in antiquities?

One solution to get senior museum curators in North America (and elsewhere) to acknowledge that they need to adopt a rigorous acquisition policy. And the AAMD has indeed taken a step in the right direction. (But there is unwillingness on the part of some AAMD organisations to engage with the new spirit of transparency.)

This latest posting from Cuno shows that he has not been listening to criticisms from the archaeological and heritage communities. We want to understand the great archaeological finds - Cuno's "great treasures of ancient art" - as part of an archaeological assemblage and not as single items devoid of their contexts.

"An example of US cultural imperialism at its worst"

Roger Bland of the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) has published a hard-hitting review article of James Cuno's Who Owns Antiquity? ("What's yours is mine"), in the London Review of Books (November 6, 2008). Bland shows that Cuno has missed the point by concentrating on ownership:

Archaeologists' principal complaint is not that objects belong in the countries where they were made but that their uncontrolled trade is a major cause of the destruction of archaeological sites across the world.

Bland's wording could be tightened. The Euphronios krater has been returned to the country (Italy) where it was found rather than to the country (Greece) where it was made. And this is true for the batch of Athenian, Laconian and Corinthian pots that have been returned to Italy.

There is discussion of the 1970 UNESCO Convention, noting, "the real significance of the Unesco convention is that it shows the signatory states are serious about curbing the illicit trade in antiquities". He places this in the context of the UK's legislation including the Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act 2003. Bland also notes the growing problem of looting from eastern Europe.

Bland is critical of Cuno's approach:

Cuno makes no attempt to deal with the issue that most concerns archaeologists: the loss of information caused by the unscientific removal of objects from their native contexts. As an art historian, Cuno cannot see beyond the physical beauty of the artefacts that appear for sale, often with no information about their provenance.

Indeed Bland does not mince his words:

Cuno speaks as someone who feels that he should be free to acquire the artefacts of other cultures since his country has no culture of its own.

Given recent discussions of bronzes from Benin in relation to the Art Institute of Chicago, this comment rings true.

There is one correction needed for the review. The Turkish Government has not, as far as I know, been able to retrieve the upper part of the "Weary Herakles" once owned by Leon Levy and Shelby White (and now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston inv. 1981.783). The mention of the Lydian treasure is significant given the recent appearance of an apparent further piece at auction in Bonhams (and subsequently withdrawn).

Bland delivers a knockout final paragraph:

Who Owns Antiquity? is an example of US cultural imperialism at its worst. Cuno's assertion that people's desire to 'present their cultural heritage in their own territory' reflects 'self-interest on the part of "source" nations and those who support their claims' is breathtakingly arrogant in the light of the tremendous damage done in so many countries from Cambodia to Peru by a traffic in antiquities aimed at satisfying the demands of collectors and museums in the West.

• Other reviews
  

Some Thoughts on the Benin Bronzes

James Cuno (in Who Owns Antiquity? [2008]) takes six objects from the holdings of the Art Institute of Chicago to demonstrate its character as an "encyclopedic museum". The third piece is a bronze plaque from Benin that was acquired in 1933; Cuno speculates that it probably "left" the kingdom of Benin following the punitive raid by the British in 1897.

Kwame Anthony Appiah (Cosmopolitanism [2006]) also uses the Benin bronzes as he asks the question, "Whose Culture Is it, Anyway?"

Some of the heirs to the kingdom of Benin, the people of Southwest Nigeria, want the bronze their ancestors cast, shaped, handled, wondered at. They would like to wonder at—if we will not let them touch—that very thing. The connection people feel to cultural objects that are symbolically theirs, because they were produced from within a world of meaning by their ancestors—the connection to art through identity—is powerful. It should be acknowledged. The cosmopolitan, through, wants to remind us of other connections.

Kwame Opoku has also been commenting on these same bronzes (e.g. "Is James Cuno a “Nationalist Retentionist”?", ModernGhana.com, July 4, 2008; see also a series of postings on Afrikanet.info). His passionate essays have prompted me to hunt through some of the news archives to see what I could find about the dispersal of Benin Bronzes. I cannot pretend this is comprehensive list, but it gives a little bit of the background to this debate.

The "Benin Punitive Expedition" was assembled in January 1897 (see "The Benin Expedition", The Times January 20, 1897). This was in response to the killing of a British party around January 1, 1897 ("Massacre of a British Expedition in West Africa", The Times January 12, 1897). The accounts of the assault on Benin city are chilling. An eye-witness at the inquest into the death of one of the British officers mentioned that the British troops turned their Maxim guns on the defenders who fell from the trees "like nuts" ("The Death of Captain Byrne", The Times March 27, 1897).

This is the context for the removal of these bronzes from Benin City. When Appiah asks us to make "connections", these are the images that spring to mind.

"Loot" soon returned to England. One of the first examples was the display of "Some interesting bronzes from Benin City" that were put on display in the Royal Colonial Institute in London in June 1897. The notice that appeared in the Court Circular of The Times (July 1, 1897) mentioned the bronzes, "the precise origin of which is at present unknown". The bronzes were on loan from the Hon. G.W. Neville, MLC, "of Lagos"; The Times cryptically added that Neville "had accompanied Admiral Sir H. Rawson's recent expedition". (For Sir Harry Holdsworth Rawson see ODNB; "he advanced to Benin city to punish the massacre in January of British political officers ... Benin was captured and looted, then accidentally burnt.")

Some of the material removed from Benin City passed into national collections. Ormonde Maddock Dalton and Hercules Read of the British Museum produced a catalogue, Antiquities from the City of Benin (London: British Museum, 1899). David M. Wilson's authoritative The British Museum: A History (London: British Museum, 2002) rather skates over the issue:

Franks and his colleagues ... were, as yet, not interested in the material as art - that came with the acquisition of the Benin bronzes at the end of the century ... (p. 161).

... [Dalton's] work on his seminal catalogue of recently acquired material from the Nigerian kingdom of Benin ... (p. 225)

Surely some mention of the circumstances of the acquisition would have been appropriate?

A taste for "Benin Bronzes" quickly developed. On September 12, 1899, a "Sale of Benin Bronzes" took place at "Mr J.C. Stevens's rooms, King-street, Covent-garden' in London (The Times September 13, 1899). This was described as "an unusually choice collection of very fine Benin bronzes" that "included many of the finest specimens yet offered, and mostly came from the palace and ju-ju house of the late King of Benin". The same auction rooms offered "A marvellous collection of BENIN BRONZES consisting of about 500 pieces" as one lot in June 1902 (see notice in The Times, May 17, 1902; report, June 4, 1902). These had been "taken by the British punitive expedition under the command of Admiral Rawson in February, 1897". Among the pieces sold were "ivory tusks carved with figures, animals, &c." (compare Cuno's Who Owns Antiquity? fig. 4 for a "Court of Benin Ivory").

A further selection of Benin bronze surfaced on the London market (in 128 lots) in May 1930 ("Benin Bronzes", The Times April 7, 1930). These came from the collection formed by George William Neville, a member of the "Benin Punitive Expedition". His obituary in The Times November 30 1929 commented,

One of Neville's exploits was to accompany the punitive military expedition to Benin in 1897, from which he returned with a remarkable collection of Benin curiosities.

The 1930 report continued:

In the King's compound [at Benin] and the ju-ju houses were discovered numerous works of art in ivory, bronze, brass, &c., buried, in several instances, and covered with the blood of human sacrifice.

These pieces came from the same collection displayed at the Royal Colonial Institute back in the summer of 1897. A further example of the material from Benin City surfacing on the market is provided by the collection formed by Dr R. Allman, medical officer for the Benin Punitive Expedition. This was sold at Sotheby's in December 1953 (The Times December 8, 1953).

Can we ignore the way that these bronzes moved from Benin City to the market and thence to private and public collections? Kwame Opoku has been right to remind us of these shameful issues.