Photo: Getty Images
A bronze sculpture of a West African king, which was held at a Rhode Island museum for over 70 years, is one among 31 culturally significant objects that have been returned to the Nigerian government, NBC News reports.
On Tuesday (October 11), the sculpture, known as the Head of a King, or Oba, and other stolen objects were transferred to the Nigerian National Collections during a ceremony at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC after being housed in the Rhode Island School of Design Museum (RISD) for decades.
The Benin Bronzes were originally stolen in 1897 when British colonial forces ransacked the kingdom of Benin, which is located in modern-day Nigeria.
“In 1897 the ‘Head of an Oba’ was stolen from the Royal Palace of Oba Ovonranwmen,” RISD Museum Interim Director Sarah Ganz Blythe said in a statement. “The RISD Museum has worked with the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments to repatriate this sculpture to the people of Nigeria where it belongs."
The pieces stolen included 29 that the Smithsonian Institution’s Board of Regents voted in June to give back to Nigeria and one object from the National Gallery of Art, officials said.
“Today, we address a historic injustice by returning the Benin Bronzes, magnificent examples of Benin’s culture and history,” Lonnie Bunch III, founding director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, wrote on Twitter. “Through this repatriation, we acknowledge a legacy of cultural theft and do our part to return African culture to Africans.”
The Head of King, which is believed to date back to the 18th century, was given to the RISD Museum by Lucy Truman Aldrich in 1939. The museum said the sculpture was obtained in a 1935 sale of objects from the Benin Kingdom from the Knoedler Gallery in New York.
The repatriation is part of a wider movement by cultural institutions to return artifacts stolen via colonialism.
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