France is showcasing 26 seized colonial-era treasures for one last time before returning them to Benin, in a move that might have ramifications throughout European institutions. In the 19th century, French armies seized wooden anthropomorphic figures, regal thrones, and sacred altars from Western Africa.
From Tuesday to Sunday, the “Abomey Treasures” collection will be on display at the Musée du Quai Branly–Jacques Chirac, allowing the French another chance to see it. The thrones of Benin’s King Ghezo (L) and King Glele (R) will go on display at the Quai Branly–Jacques Chirac museum in Paris on Oct. 25, 2021.
President Emmanuel Macron declared in a speech in 2017 that he can no longer tolerate “that a big portion of the cultural heritage of numerous African countries lies in France.” It outlined a strategy for recovering royal relics looted during the imperial and colonial periods.
However, France has only given one object so far: a legendary sword to the Army Museum in Senegal. The 26 artifacts intended for Benin are a small part of the nearly 90,000 antiquities from Sub-Saharan Africa housed in French museums.
Critics of such initiatives, such as the British Museum in London, which has been fighting the Greek government for decades over the return of the Elgin Marbles, are concerned that it may open the floodgates to Western museums being emptied of their collections.
Many of them are made up of colonial-era items that were either acquired or stolen. France’s cultural minister, Roselyne Bachelot, attempted to calm museum anxieties by stating that this idea “would not set a legal precedent.”
The statues and swords were returned to Benin and Senegal, respectively, after a French law was passed last year. She did say, however, that the French government’s restriction was intentionally limited, referring only to the 27 artifacts. “It provides no general right to reparation” and “does not cast any doubt” on French museums’ right to keep their artifacts.
The sculpted forms of the “Abomey Treasures” are accompanied by a story. Colonel Alfred Dodds led a plundering French expeditionary army into the Kingdom of Dahomèy, south of modern-day Benin, in November 1892. The colonizing troops stormed King Behanzin’s Abomey Palace, stealing various royal treasures, including the 26 artifacts that Dodds had brought to Paris’s Musée d’Ethnographie du Trocadéro in the 1890s.
The artifacts have been housed at the Musée du Quai Branly–Jacques Chirac since the 2000s. Benin’s Culture Minister, Jean-Michel Abimbola, welcomed the recovery of the paintings as a “historic achievement” and the beginning of continuous cooperation between the two countries during a press conference last week. The government is building a museum in Abomey to house the riches, which will be largely sponsored by France.
The French Development Agency has agreed to invest 35 million euros in the “Museum of the Saga of the Amazonians and the Dahomey Kings” as part of a pledge made earlier this year. According to Abimbola, Macron will witness the official transfer of the 26 works on Nov. 9 in Paris, and the art will arrive in Benin a few days later.
While some residents believe the decision is taking too long, the art will eventually be returned. “Among Benin’s ancient treasures, there existed a space that is gradually being filled,” African Union President Fortune Sossa stated.