‘Stuff the British Stole’ examines the provenance of British colonial art and listens like true crime ★★★★☆

The radio and podcast series A History of the World in 100 Objects from 2010 was an instructive art series about objects and artefacts stored in the British Museum. The approach, always one episode per object, was widely followed. Also de Volkskrant borrowed the idea, in the story series and accompanying exhibition The history of Dutch pop culture in a hundred objects.

Another beautiful follower is the podcast series Stuff the British Stole, from the Australian broadcaster ABC. The journalist Marc Fennell visits the British Museum to look at some objects. But above all: to unravel the somewhat less flourishing history. How did those marble sculptures from the Athenian Acropolis actually end up in London? What has Britain stolen from the colonies during the glory years of the Empire? Isn’t it time to return the stolen stuff to its rightful owners?

Fennell is of course not the first to examine the colonialist art treasures of the British Empire. The return of the Greek sculptures, which according to the British government were legally purchased, has been debated for years. The nice thing about Stuff the British Stole is the way in which Fennell works. He is not ready to judge, so he is not angry in advance, and opts for a cheerful, journalistic approach. He talks to historians, but also travels to countries where artifacts have been removed and polls the descendants of bereaved chieftains or imperial families. Or the man in the street. In doing so, Marc Fennell, himself of Asian-Australian descent, also explores his own history.

Some episodes can be listened to as exciting true crime. Fennell uncovers a wonderful story about an old British gentleman who, due to circumstances, and after many legacies, turned out to be in possession of two bronze works of art that were looted from the kingdom of Benin in 1897, after a British punitive expedition. He wants to return the documents, but rather not to the current Nigerian rulers. The man undertakes a long and risky adventure and eventually delivers his ‘Benin Bronzes’ to the real heir: the Nigerian prince Edun Akenzua.

The series looks beyond art. Very startling is the story of the British destruction of the Chinese Summer Palace in Beijing during the Opium Wars. The soldiers also tore the art from the walls here, to be shipped to the motherland. But they also hijacked a small dog with lop-eared rabbit ears. This was given to Queen Victoria as a gift, and so the ‘Pekinese’ dog breed was introduced to the west. The Queen named the beast as a middle finger to its previous, Imperial owner. She named her dog Looty. In other words: booty of war.