The Benin Bronzes

Brass and ivory cast for the Oba’s court of the Kingdom of Benin, from the sixteenth century on. Among the finest metalwork ever made. Looted in 1897.

In 1897 a British punitive expedition burned Benin City, in present-day Nigeria, and carried off thousands of brass and ivory works from the Oba’s court. They were sold and scattered across Western museums and private hands, where most of them still sit. Restitution has begun. It is not finished.