Smithsonian has about 38 Benin artifacts in its database. The Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of African Art in Washington, DC has removed its collection of Benin bronzes from the display, according to a report by The Art Newspaper.
The bronzes are some of the thousands of artifacts stolen by British soldiers during an 1897 raid on the royal palace in Benin City.
The Smithsonian has about 38 Benin artifacts in its database, half of them traced to the raid and had displayed 21 of them earlier this year.
The museum’s director, Ngaire Blankenberg, told The Art Newspaper the bronzes have now been taken down from display.
“We are fully committed to repatriation. We cannot build for the future without making our best effort at healing the wounds of the past,” she said.
The artifacts stolen from Benin City have been scattered all over the world, displayed in museums and other institutions in the United States and Europe.
Numerous institutions in the United Kingdom, United States, and Germany have recently announced plans to return the artifacts.
A cockerel artifact gifted to Jesus College, the University of Cambridge by a student’s father in 1905 was returned to the Royal Court of Benin last week.
The University of Aberdeen also returned a bronze head to Nigeria.
