Thread by @BarnabyPhillips

A dealer is struggling to sell this beautiful Benin Bronze leopard. He bought it for +500,000 Euros, 2014. He says it was taken by the British in 1897. We’ve heard a lot (!) on looted Bronzes in Western museums/restitution. A🧵on those in private hands. 1/10

Dealer says leopard (42cms long & tall) c 1600 AD ‘or earlier’ of ‘extraordinary rarity’ (although he knows a similar one in a different private collection). But he can’t sell it. He says collectors are ‘concerned this is an asset that is going to diminish’. Is this a trend? 2/10

Certainly @Sothebys @ChristiesInc, key over decades in dispersal of 1897 loot, now cautious of bad PR. Bronzes now emblematic of colonial loot. Once 1897 provenance brought cachet for collectors. Now brings stigma. Purchases legal but are they ethical? So prices go ⬇️ 3/10

But how many Bronzes are we talking about? In 2022 Digital Benin listed 5,246 Bronzes in 131 museums. But it didn’t try to list those in private collections, and experts unsure on how many there are. digitalbenin.org/documentation/… 4/10

I claim no overview, but know of at least 20 Bronzes apparently taken 1897 owned privately. ie v small proportion of total loot. But; 1) There are surely more 2) These 20 include several ‘masterpieces’, (sorry curators). Such as ….5/10

..This flute man, taken by Captain Herbert Walker. Sold July 1974 @Sothebys London £185,000, an astonishing price at the time and world record for ‘tribal art’, which had never broken six figures. Mystery buyer, not seen in public since, rumoured to be in Europe. 6/10

And the Ohly Head. Sold for a secret price of £10 million - to a secret buyer- in 2016. See my 2021 story 7/10

bbc.co.uk/news/world-afr…

And the Galway Mask, one of famous 5 ivory masks said to have been taken from Oba Ovonramwen’s chamber. (Other 4: @britishmuseum @metmuseum @iheartSAM and..Nigeria returned 2022 by @LindenMuseum). Henry Galway’s family sold it to Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah Al Thani #Qatar 8/10

Was the mask sale a sign of things to come? If so, will Qatari royalty heed African calls for restitution? Will prices in the West of Bronzes continue to fall? Will wealthy Nigerian collectors try to buy back their country’s heritage as eg Chinese have done? All worth watching. 9

h/t to Adenike Cosgrove at @imodara, who follows all this closely. check her site and.. see my book ‘Loot’ for much more on the history of owners and dealers in Benin Bronzes ever since the British invasion of 1897. End