The Museum of Fine Arts Boston has returned two works of art to the Kingdom of Benin after 12 years in its collection.
The transfer was coordinated and facilitated by Dr. Arese Carrington, a member of the MFA’s Board of Advisors, who called the event in a statement “very significant.”
“These two artifacts are being returned to the true and proper owner and back to a place where they have both cultural and spiritual value,” she stated.
The terracotta and iron Commemorative Head from the 16th or 17th century and a 16th–century bronze Relief Plaque Showing Two Officials with Raised Swords were looted by British soldiers during their attack on the historical Kingdom of Benin (present-day Benin City, Nigeria) in 1897.
According to the museum, the provenance of the terracotta and iron sculpture could be traced to the London art market in 1899, “when it was sold by dealer William Cutter to another dealer, William Downing Webster, along with other artwork looted from Benin.” The provenance of the Relief Plaque could be traced directly back to the British forces who led the attack in 1897, and later the Crown Agent of the Niger Coast Protectorate who sold it in 1898.
Both items were purchased by British archaeologist Augustus Pitt-Rivers for his namesake museum in Farnham, England, which closed in the 1960s, with its collections subsequently dispersed. Art collector Robert Owen Lehman Jr. (the son of the philanthropist and head of the Lehman Brothers investment bank) acquired the two works between the 1960s and 1980s while building his collection of Benin Kingdom artwork. Lehman donated the Commemorative Head and the Relief Plaque to the MFA Boston in 2013 and 2018.
The museum previously acknowledged that many items in the Lehman Collection, acquired “through purchase at public auction and from dealers, can be traced to the attack on Benin in 1897.”
On June 27, the Commemorative Head and the Relief Plaque were presented to His Royal Highness Prince Aghatise Erediauwa and H.E. Ambassador Samson Itegboje of the Embassy of Nigeria in a ceremony at the Nigeria House in New York City.
“The National Commission for Museums and Monuments, working with the Embassy of Nigeria in Washington, D.C., will take possession of these two works and coordinate their handling, care, transit to Nigeria, and delivery to the Oba of Benin,” stated the museum.
The repatriation ceremony on June 27 was also attended by H.E. Ambassador Abubakar Jidda, Consul General of Nigeria, New York; Matthew Teitelbaum, the MFA’s Ann and Graham Gund Director; Pierre Terjanian, the MFA’s Chief of Curatorial Affairs and Conservation; and Victoria Reed, the MFA’s Senior Curator for Provenance. Some members of the Benin community in New York were also present to witness this return.
The MFA Boston closed its Benin Kingdom Gallery in April. The gallery had opened in 2013 after Lehman Jr. pledged to donate his collection of West African works, including 30 examples of Benin Bronzes, from the 16th to the 18th centuries over time, resulting in their display in the museum. Almost all of the items were returned to Lehman Jr.
The museum also noted that three works of art donated by Lehman Jr. from the Benin Kingdom remain in its permanent collection, and said the provenance of these items was inconclusive. “They can be traced to the European and American art markets in the second half of the 20th century, and it is not known for certain when or how they left Benin. Research on these objects is ongoing.”
The five items donated by Lehman Jr. were previously scheduled to go on view in late June in the museum’s Art of Africa Gallery.
