Smithsonian moves toward returning Benin Bronzes

The head of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art said Friday that museum officials have removed its Benin Bronzes from display and plan to begin the process of potentially repatriating the priceless West African artifacts that were looted by the British army more than a century ago.

The announcement makes the Smithsonian the latest Western cultural institution — and one of the most prominent to date — to agree to explore returning items that were stolen in 1897 from Benin City, in what is now Nigeria.

The move was first reported by The Art Newspaper. A spokeswoman for the Smithsonian Institution confirmed the accuracy of the report.

“I can confirm that we have taken down the Benin Bronzes we had on display and we are fully committed to repatriation where it is warranted,” the museum’s director, Ngaire Blankenberg, said in an email to The New York Times. “We cannot build for the future without making our best effort at healing the wounds of the past.”

Writing to The Times from Lagos, Nigeria, where she said she is working on a series of artistic and institutional collaborations, Blankenberg also emphasized that the Benin Bronze process is part of “a much wider context and strategy,” and that the conditions that “gave rise to the Bronzes being looted in the first place and displayed in museums around the world must never happen again.”

The National Museum of African Art has 16 objects with provenance dating back to the 1897 raid, Blankenberg said. Ten of the objects were on display and have now been taken down. “There may be others in our collection,” Blankenberg said, “but we are still doing research.”

Linda St. Thomas, a spokeswoman for the Smithsonian Institution, said that while the National Museum of African Art is committed to repatriation, it is “at the beginning of a process” with the Benin Bronzes.