Switzerland Returns 18 Benin Bronzes to Nigeria
Switzerland returned 23 artifacts to Nigeria this week, including 18 Benin Bronzes from the Geneva Ethnography Museum, the Museum Rietberg in Zurich, and the Ethnographic Museum at the University of Zurich. The remaining five objects—one bracelet and four monoliths from Nigeria’s Niger Delta region—were recovered through separate criminal proceedings after being illegally imported into Switzerland. The restitution follows provenance research conducted under the Benin Initiative Switzerland, launched in 2021 and involving eight Swiss museums, which concluded the Benin objects were most likely looted during the British Punitive Expedition of 1897. At a ceremony yesterday, Swiss Federal Councillor Elisabeth Baume-Schneider and Nigeria’s Minister of Art, Culture, and the Creative Economy Hannatu Musa Musawa signed an agreement establishing a framework for the import, export, and repatriation of cultural property and for preventing trafficking.
From This Briefing
This story was covered in Strikes, Restitution, and AI Unlocking the Past