Benin Dialogue Group agrees support for museum in Nigeria
Press release from 10/23/2018
The participants of this year's meeting of the Benin Dialogue Group agreed last Friday that a new museum with a regularly changing exhibition of works of art from the former Kingdom of Benin should be established in Benin City. European and Nigerian museums will provide works of art on loan for this purpose. This was announced by the Benin Dialogue Group in a statement.
Hermann Parzinger, President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, said: "I am delighted that after years of endeavour, a path has now been found that all those involved can follow. It shows how important joint dialogue is, the openness to approach each other and to think in a solution-oriented way."
The Benin Dialogue Group is a long-standing initiative in which European museums work together with Nigerian partners and the Royal Court of Benin. The Ethnological Museum of the National Museums in Berlin has been an active member of this group since the first meeting.
The original wording of the Benin Dialogue Group statement
The Ethnological Museum of the National Museums in Berlin has one of the world's most important collections of historical artefacts from the Kingdom of Benin, with over 500 pieces. There are also around 160 historical photographs. An exhibition module with just over 200 objects from this collection is planned for the Humboldt Forum. Some objects from the collection are currently on display in the "Incomparable" exhibition at the Bode Museum. The historical context of the sculptures will also be addressed there.
For more than 500 years, the Kingdom of Benin was a regional power in West Africa, not far from the Niger Delta. Today, the kingdom's territory is located in the state of Nigeria. The brass sculptures and ivory carvings from the Kingdom of Benin, dating from the 15th to 19th centuries, are among the most spectacular works of art from Africa. They testify to the splendour and historical importance of the kingdom, which was in close trade contact with Europe for centuries.
The collections of courtly art in Benin were dispersed worldwide as a result of the British colonial conquest in 1897. After a British delegation invaded and attacked the kingdom's capital against the will of the king (oba) in January 1897, British soldiers conquered and devastated the kingdom. Many of the bronze and ivory artefacts that adorned the king's palace were captured. British soldiers brought some of the artefacts to the United Kingdom, where they were auctioned in London or sold privately in the following years. Other objects were traded in Africa, where they were acquired by Africans and Europeans and then travelled to Europe via various trade networks. The collection of objects from Benin in today's Ethnological Museum (formerly the Museum of Ethnology) was also acquired via the global art market and market for ethnographic artefacts.