The German city of Cologne has announced that it had decided to return its Benin bronzes from the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum to Nigeria.
The Foreign Office in Berlin is currently drawing up a political framework agreement between Nigeria and Germany.
The transfer of ownership rights does not rule out the possibility of some of the bronzes being shown in German museums in the future, the director of the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum, Nanette Snoep, told dpa.
“But the decision on this then lies with Nigeria,’’ she said, adding that this reverses “the power relations established by colonialism.’’
The Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum’s collection includes 96 court artworks that were looted from the royal palace of the Kingdom of Benin in what is now South-South Nigeria by the British Army in 1897.
The works were subsequently auctioned off in Europe. It is Germany’s fourth-largest collection of Benin court art.
(dpa/NAN)
