Also possible at short notice: German Lost Art Foundation awards funds for research on Benin bronzes

The dis­cus­sion about the re­turn of the so-called Benin bronzes to Nige­ria does not on­ly af­fect large in­sti­tu­tions such as the Hum­boldt Fo­rum – small­er in­sti­tu­tions in Ger­many al­so own cul­tur­al ob­jects from Benin that may date back to seizures and loot­ing at the Roy­al Palace in Benin City in 1897. In or­der to en­able small­er mu­se­ums to iden­ti­fy such ob­jects in their hold­ings, the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion would like to en­cour­age them to ap­ply for short-term re­search grants from its funds. The Foun­da­tion can pro­vide up to 25,000 Eu­ros for a project du­ra­tion of up to six months for prove­nance re­search on in­di­vid­u­al ob­jects or small­er groups of ob­jects.

On April 29, 2021, the Min­is­ter of State for Cul­ture and the Me­dia Moni­ka Grüt­ters, the di­rec­tors of the Ger­man mem­ber mu­se­ums of the Benin Di­a­logue Group, the min­is­ters of cul­ture of the fed­er­al states re­spon­si­ble for these mu­se­ums, and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Fed­er­al For­eign Of­fice agreed on a joint dec­la­ra­tion on the fur­ther han­dling of the Benin bronzes in Ger­man mu­se­ums. In ad­di­tion to the great­est pos­si­ble trans­paren­cy, the main aim is to achieve sub­stan­tial resti­tu­tions and co­op­er­a­tion. First resti­tu­tions are planned in the course of 2022. The "Ger­man Con­tact Point for Col­lec­tions from Colo­nial Con­texts" is to pub­lish a list of all Benin bronzes held by mu­se­ums on its web­site at www.cp3c.de by June 15, 2021.

The term "Benin bronzes" is a col­lec­tive term for sculp­tures and met­al pan­els loot­ed by British troops at the end of the 19th cen­tu­ry from the roy­al palace in the King­dom of Benin in present-day Nige­ria. In ad­di­tion, there are al­so works of art from Benin in Ger­man col­lec­tions that ar­rived in Eu­rope as barter and trade goods. Ob­jects from Benin are now in many Eu­ro­pean mu­se­ums, and in Ger­many alone there are about 1000 of these im­por­tant African works of art.

If, in the case of works from the King­dom of Benin, there is a sus­pi­cion of ac­qui­si­tion by force, as in the case of the British ac­tion against Benin City, the spe­cial ur­gen­cy re­quired by the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion for short-term fund­ing is clear­ly giv­en. Own funds do not have to be pro­vid­ed for this pur­pose. El­i­gi­ble to ap­ply are in­sti­tu­tions un­der pub­lic law as well as those with rec­og­nized non-prof­it sta­tus.