Art Stolen by Colonialists and the Way Home

Vfire the Golden Bear at the 2024 BerlinaleThe docufilm Dahomey (on Mubi) turned the spotlight on a little-known topic. It chronicles the journey of 26 artistic artefacts of the Kingdom of Dahomey from the Parisian Ethnographic Museum of Quai Branly to their place of origin, the current state of Benin, in November 2021. France had stolen these royal treasures in 1892when the kingdom of Dahomey – founded in the seventeenth century – had become a French protectorate.

Art stolen by colonizers

During the colonial era, major European empires plundered African works of artwar booty taken to museums or sold to private collectors. With the decolonization process, various African nations have begun to demand its restitution. For years, for example, Nigeria asks to get back the Benin bronzes (an ancient kingdom which today is a region of the country and has nothing to do with the state of the same name, ed.), sacked in 1897 by the English and scattered in various museums and collections around the world.

The West’s examination of conscience

In recent decades, Europe has begun to examine its conscience. France, on the initiative of President Macron, carried out the gesture described in the film. Germany also returned 22 works to Nigerians in 2022. It is a timid beginning, of great symbolic value. In Zurich, the Rietberg Museum presents the exhibition until 16 February 2025 In dialogue with Benin: art, colonialism, restitution which concerns the cultural heritage of the kingdom (without providing for refunds to date). It must be said that it is not up to individual museum directors to decide: cultural assets belong to the State, that he is the only one who has the right to do so. To prove to the world that any works of art returned will be stored correctly, New museums are emerging in Africa: since 2018, in Dakar there is the Museum of Black Civilizations and in Nigeria the MOWAA is emerging (Museum of West African Art) in Benin City.

Rights and wrongs

The restitution of cultural assets is a minefield. On the one hand, there is a fear that recognizing the legitimacy of a restitution request will trigger a chain reaction, emptying museums of non-European cultures. Al British Museum for decades the methods of acquiring works such as the Parthenon marbles, the Rosetta Stone, the Moai from Easter Island, stolen from an English ship in 1868, have been disputed. Until now, the museum’s management has always resisted. With motivations shared by those who appeal to the idea of ​​a “universal museum” argues that exhibiting works in metropolises such as London, Paris or Berlin makes art more accessible to everyone.

Preserving memory from civil wars

In defense of the work of European scholars, it can be said that in some cases it was they who undertook archaeological campaigns in countries that had not yet thought of doing them. Not only that: faced with civil wars and devastation, It is thanks to European museums thatin some cases, the memory of a country’s artistic heritage has been preserved. Just think of Afghanistan under the Taliban in 2001, when the Buddhas of Bamiyan were destroyed. Opposite is the vision of those who point out that archeology has often gone hand in hand with colonial rulers and that behind the idea of ​​”protecting” art there was actual predation. Adding that an artistic work is best appreciated in the context for which it was created. In which the bond of a people with its history and origins, which the subtraction of artefacts undermines, can be maintained.

Napoleon’s pillaging

Over the centuries, too Italy was the scene of looting and undue exports. «The first laws to protect artistic heritage date back to the fifteenth century, in papal Rome» explains Stefano Alessandrini, archaeologist and expert in cultural diplomacy for the restitution of stolen goods. «Napoleon plundered works of art throughout Europe and also in Italy. With the Congress of Vienna attempts to recover what has been lost. Pope Pius VII appointed as commissioner a famous artist, Antonio Canova, who with the support of the English brought home about half of the paintings stolen and given to the Louvre.” At the time, Italy was not yet a unitary state, which put it at a disadvantage. An example? The monumental canvas of the Wedding at Cana by Veronese (1593), plundered from the Monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice by the French, was never returned. The Serenissima under the Austrians regained the Lion and the Horses of San Marco but was unable to assert itself in everything. The nineteenth century was a lucky century for art merchants and traffickerswho toured Italy extensively trying to convince parish priests and nobles to get rid of paintings and sculptures.

«While Rome, Tuscany and part of the South were protected by the laws of the Papal State which protected works of art, in the North trade remained free for a long timeand many works took off. The first law to protect the national heritage will only arrive in 1902″ says Alessandrini. And a 1909 law defines cultural assets discovered underground or in national waters as state property. Then, over the course of the century, two Hague conventions intervene to protect artistic heritage in the event of warand in 1970 UNESCO signed the agreement against the illicit trafficking of cultural goods.

How to get a refund

“Obtaining a restitution is difficult, you need an official request” comments Alessandrini, who was a member of the Restitution Committee of the Ministry of Culture. Among the successes of our cultural diplomacy, the return of the Goddess of Morgantinapurchased illegally by the Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and since 2011 exhibited in a new museum in Aidone, Sicily. AND the vase of Euphronius from the 6th century BC. C.stolen from an Etruscan tomb and ended up at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Since 2008 he has been in Italy at the Cerveteri Archaeological Museum, where he has increased the number of visitors. Behind the refunds, there are often years of negotiationspressure on the ambassador and, sometimes, international lawsuits.

In addition to intense team work, in which ministerial officials, art experts, carabinieri and magistrates collaborate. Because the archaeologist can become Sherlock Holmes. An example? In the 1960s, a bronze statuette called the Ercolino di Pesaro was stolen from an Italian museum, causing it to disappear. «Consulting the bulletin of an art gallery in New York online, I recognized her» says Alessandrini, one of the managers of Arca, international organization for the study of crimes against cultural heritage. The resulting process brought Ercolino back to Pesaro after 50 years.

The Roman collections

Italy also had an, albeit brief, colonial past. In this capacity, the issue of refunds also concerns us: in Rome there was a Colonial Museum, with around 12 thousand objects. Remained in storage since 1971, the year of its closure. «He was propaganda for colonialism» explains Gaia Delpino, curator of the African Arts and Cultures collection and of the collection of the former Colonial Museum of the Museum of Civilizations. “It included ethnographic and religious objects, paintings by Ethiopian and Italian painters representing the colonies and the people who lived there.” These collections have become part of the Museum of Civilizations in Rome, to the EUR, in 2017together with works from the former Pigorini Ethnographic Museum, founded at the end of the nineteenth century. Some objects tell a story of Africa different from that of our imagination. «They testify to the existence of equal relations between Europeans, especially Portuguese, and African political realities until the seventeenth century, with the exchange of diplomatic gifts» explains Delpino. And of the African artistic artefacts present, part
it therefore comes from gifts, exchanges, even purchases made by Europeans.

Another story

At the Museum of Civilizations, which will fully reopen in 2026, the rooms are being rearranged with new narrative paths, researching the provenance of the objects. In the meantime, in June 2023 the Museum of Opacities was opened, also with reference to the colonial past. Like other European museums, this one in Rome has also chosen the path of focusing on dialogue with artists of the present from the countries of origin of the objects and with the communities. «Last June, the Somaliyei Toosa association celebrated Somalia’s independence day by accessing the Somali collections» says Delpino. «Similarly in February, to remember the massacre carried out by Graziani in Addis Ababa, the Yekatit 12 Network and the museum organize guided tours of the Ethiopian community to the Ethiopian collections».

The museum thus becomes a meeting point. «Today we need an approach based on empathy and respect» comments Delpino. «People from plundered and colonized countries may perceive the museum as a violent place. It must become a space of mediation, to face the past.” Have there been requests to return “stolen” art? «No, but the research is underway, we don’t know what stories they will reveal to us» adds Delpino. However, the Italian state has done some restitution of value: from the Axum obelisk returned to Ethiopia in 2005 to the Venus of Cyrene, returned to Libya in 2008.

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