Netherlands to return over 100 Benin Bronzes to Nigeria

The Benin Bronzes are a collection of thousands of metal plaques and sculptures that decorated the royal palace of the Kingdom of Benin. Created between the 14th and 16th century, British soldiers looted the Benin Bronzes from modern-day Nigeria in the 19th century.

Of the looted statues taken during the Benin Expedition of 1897, two hundred were housed in the British Museum with the rest spread across other European institutions.

The Netherlands has agreed to return its share of the Benin Bronzes. The 119 statues have been mostly housed in Leiden and will now be given to the Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments.

The development comes as governments and museums in Europe and North America have increasingly sought to resolve ownership disputes over objects looted during colonial times.

Olugible Holloway, the commission’s director, traveled to The Netherlands to sign the transfer agreement during a ceremony at the Museum Volkenkunde marking what he said was the largest single return of antiques looted from Benin.

“We thank the Netherlands for their cooperation and hope this will set a good example for other nations of the world in terms of repatriation of lost or looted antiquities,” Holloway said in a statement.

Nigeria formally requested the return of hundreds of objects from museums around the world in 2022. Some 72 objects were returned from a London museum that year while 31 were returned from a museum in Rhode Island.

The decision to return the items in the Dutch collection followed an assessment of a committee tasked with looking into requests by countries for restitution of artifacts in state museums. It marked the fifth time Dutch cultural institutions have returned objects based on the committee’s recommendation.

“Cultural heritage is essential for telling and living the history of a country and a community,” Eppo Bruins, the Dutch culture and education minister, said in a statement. “The Benin Bronzes are indispensable to Nigeria. It is good that they are going back.”

The committee is currently considering requests from Sri Lanka, India and Indonesia for the return of objects. In 2023, two Dutch museums returned hundreds of cultural artifacts back to Indonesia and Sri Lanka taken, often by force, during the colonial era.

Over at the British Museum, arguments still rage over requests to return cultural heritage to their original countries. The London museum houses over 900 Benin Bronzes. While the museum insists it has had positive discussions with Nigeria on the issue, the 2023 scandal over thefts from the museum caused consternation from Nigeria. “It’s shocking to hear that the countries and museums that have been telling us that the Benin Bronzes would not be secure in Nigeria have thefts happening there,” Abba Isa Tijani, Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments’s director told the press at the time.

Although UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has expressed more openness to returning the Elgin Marbles than his predecessors, there has been no change in the museum’s long-standing position of keeping them.