A group of the Benin bronzes that Germany handed back to Nigeria have vanished into a private collection instead of being exhibited in a museum as promised, prompting some observers to describe the restitution as a “fiasco”.
At the end of the 19th century British forces and other Europeans stripped several thousand metal plaques from the royal palace of the kingdom of Benin, in what is now the south of Nigeria.
The “bronzes”, most of which are in fact copper-alloy panels, were distributed across the West, with many acquired by the British Museum and the Ethnological Museum of Berlin.
A “hand altar” on display in Berlin last year
JENS SCHLUETER/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Over the past two years various institutions have begun returning the sculptures to Nigeria, as western museums and nations become more open to the idea of
