Court art · Nigeria
The Benin Bronzes
The Benin Bronzes are thousands of sculptures and plaques in brass, bronze, ivory and wood made for the royal court of the Kingdom of Benin, in what is now Edo State in southern Nigeria — not the modern Republic of Benin. Looted by British forces in 1897 and scattered to museums and collections worldwide, they became the most famous case in the debate over colonial-era collections; since 2021 museums in Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands have returned or transferred hundreds of them to Nigeria.
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The kingdom and its art
The Kingdom of Benin, centred on Benin City, was one of the great states of West Africa. It is ruled by the Oba, and the kingdom still exists today within Nigeria: the current Oba, Ewuare II, took the throne in 2016.
Its art served the court. Commemorative heads stood on the altars of past Obas; brass plaques covered the pillars of the palace; figures, bells, stools, ornaments and carved ivory tusks recorded the kingdom's history, rituals and power. Many of the "bronzes" are in fact brass, cast by the lost-wax method. The casters belong to a royal guild, the Igun Eronmwon, whose workshops on Igun Street in Benin City are still working today. From the late fifteenth century, brass reached Benin in large quantities through trade with the Portuguese, much of it in the form of bracelet-shaped ingots called manillas.
The plaques and the Queen Mother
The rectangular brass plaques, most of them made in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, show Obas, chiefs, warriors, musicians and Portuguese traders in high relief. Hundreds survive.
One of the most famous Benin works is not metal but ivory: a small sixteenth-century pendant mask of Idia, the mother of Oba Esigie, who is remembered as a warrior and adviser. A version in the British Museum became the emblem of FESTAC '77, the World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture held in Lagos in 1977; Nigeria's request to borrow the original for the festival was refused.
1897
In January 1897 a British party led by the acting consul James Phillips set out for Benin City at a time when the Oba had asked that no visitors come, because of a royal ceremony. The party was attacked and most of its members were killed. In February a British force of about 1,200 men captured Benin City, which was burned; Oba Ovonramwen was sent into exile in Calabar, where he died in 1914.
The soldiers took thousands of objects from the palace and the city. Many were sold in London to pay the costs of the expedition, and they were dispersed to museums and private collections in Britain, Germany, the United States and elsewhere. The British Museum holds the largest collection, of more than 900 objects; Berlin's Ethnological Museum held the second largest.
Return
Nigeria and the Oba of Benin have asked for the objects' return since the twentieth century. The pace changed in the 2020s:
- 2021: the University of Aberdeen returned a Benin head, and Jesus College, Cambridge, returned a brass cockerel.
- 2022: Germany agreed to transfer ownership of about 1,130 Benin objects in its public museums to Nigeria and handed over the first pieces in December; the Smithsonian transferred ownership of 29 objects; London's Horniman Museum transferred 72.
- 2023: a Nigerian presidential declaration recognised the Oba of Benin as the owner and custodian of returned objects, which led some institutions to pause.
- 2025: the Netherlands returned 119 objects.
The British Museum is prevented by law from permanently giving away items in its collection and has not returned its Benin works.
In November 2025 the Museum of West African Art (MOWAA) opened the first building of its campus in Benin City, amid protests by supporters of the Oba; plans to display returned bronzes there had been set aside after disagreements with the palace. Where the returned works will be shown is still being settled.
Two common confusions
- Benin is not Benin. The Kingdom of Benin is in Nigeria. The Republic of Benin, the country to the west, took the name in 1975; its own royal treasures, from the Kingdom of Dahomey, are a different collection — France returned 26 of them in 2021.
- Bronze is often brass. "Benin Bronzes" is the established name, but most of the cast works are brass, and the corpus also includes ivory, wood and coral.
Related
The Benin works belong to a long West African tradition of casting described in African sculpture. Museums that hold them, and others that have returned them, are listed in where to see African art. The short history of African art places them in the wider story, and West African art in their region. In Nigeria, Benin works can be seen at the Benin City National Museum and the Nigerian National Museum in Lagos.