In an unprecedented move for a United States arts institution, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, will return a promised gift of Benin Bronzes and close the collection’s dedicated gallery on April 28. The gallery will ultimately transition into a space for displaying the MFA Boston’s collection of Nubian art, a small selection of which will go on view beginning May 1, followed by a “more robust” display when the works return from a touring exhibition.
The Benin Bronzes—a group of thousands of bronze and ivory objects looted from the West African kingdom of Benin (present-day Nigeria) by British forces in the 18th century—have helped upend Western museums’ approach to the exhibition of art acquired in violent contexts.
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The MFA Boston opened its Benin gallery in 2013 after Robert Owen Lehman pledged to donate his collection of West African works from the 16th to the 18th centuries over time. Many works in the Lehman Collection, which was established in 1970s and 1980s “through purchase at public auction and from dealers, can be traced to the attack on Benin in 1897,” the museum said in a statement issued today (April 22).
Of that promised gift, Lehman outright donated five Benin objects to the museum, which will go on view in late June in its Art of Africa Gallery. The MFA Boston, “continues to seek a resolution regarding the ownership and display of the Benin Kingdom works in its collection,” the statement added.
“The MFA was the first American museum to launch a colonial-era provenance project. We strive to be a leader in ethical stewardship and reaching judicious restitution decisions,” museum director Matthew Teitelbaum said in a statement. “Unfortunately, we were not able to make progress on a mutually agreeable resolution for our gallery of Benin bronzes. Without such a resolution, the gallery could not be sustained in the long term.”
In July 2024, the University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art became the first in the US to restitute its holdings of Benin Bronzes—two objects, a brass plaque and wooden altarpiece—after the museum’s collections committee and advisory board voted for their deaccession and re-classification as on loan to the Stanley from the Oba of Benin, the former head of the royal family of Benin and steward of its legacy. A year prior, the Nigerian government declared that the current Oba of Benin, Oba Ewuare II, is the rightful custodian of the artifacts.
The 3,000 artifacts that comprise the Benin Bronzes were stolen from the Kingdom of Benin, during a raid of the royal palace in 1897. The group include figurines, tusks, likeness of Benin’s rulers, and sacred masks, most of which resides in state museums in Europe. Broadly speaking, public consensus has shifted in favor of Nigeria’s claim, however the bronzes remain a litmus test of an institution’s willingness to lose popular pieces of their collection.
In 2022, the Germany concluded a years long negotiation between its government and Nigeria’s that saw 20 Benin artifacts returned from German museums. Earlier this year, the Netherlands vowed to return113 Benin Bronzes—which include plaques, personal ornaments and figures—housed in the Wereldmuseum Leiden, part of the country’s National Museum of World Cultures, to Nigeria.
“Art and heritage should be where they belong,” Said Kasmi, a member of the Rotterdam municipal executive, said at the time. “These objects belong in Nigeria. By returning them, we’re taking an important step towards recognizing the past and respecting the value these objects hold for Nigeria.”