By Osehobo Ofure, Benin City
The complex saga surrounding a prized collection of Benin bronzes at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has taken a dramatic turn, as wealthy American collector Robert Owen Lehman Jr. has reclaimed the artifacts and decided they will not be returned to their place of origin — the Oba’s Palace in Benin City, Nigeria.
The museum, had proudly displayed the group of roughly 30 finely crafted sculptures since 2013, and acknowledged from the outset that the pieces were among thousands looted by British forces during their brutal 1897 invasion of the Kingdom of Benin, according to a New York Times report.
At the time, the museum hailed the acquisition, made possible through Lehman’s loan — with an understanding they would eventually be donated — as a significant cultural addition, even inviting the then-Oba of Benin to the gallery’s opening.
The report says that following the enthronement of Omo N’Oba N’Edo Ukuakpolokpolo Oba Ewuare II, palace officials reached out to the museum seeking the repatriation of the items. However years of discussions involving the palace, the museum, and Lehman ultimately collapsed, leading to the announcement this week that almost all the objects would be returned — not to Benin — but back to Lehman himself.
“We strive to be a leader in ethical stewardship and reaching judicious restitution decisions,” said Matthew Teitelbaum, the museum’s director since 2015, in a statement. “Unfortunately, we were not able to make progress on a mutually agreeable resolution for our gallery of Benin Bronzes.”
Between 2012 and 2020, Lehman officially ‘donated’ five objects from the Benin Kingdom to the Museum of Fine Arts, which now form part of its permanent collection. These include two relief plaques, two commemorative heads, and an 18th- or 19th-century pendant depicting an Oba flanked by two dignitaries. The museum said it remains open to further dialogue about the ownership and display of these pieces.
Lehman, a great-grandson of Lehman Brothers co-founder Emanuel Lehman and son of famed art collector Robert Owen Lehman Sr., declined to comment.
Among the artifacts Lehman is reclaiming is a 16th-century copper alloy sculpture of a warrior holding a spear — once described by the museum as a “particularly excellent” example — alongside a 19th-century staff crowned with the figure of a bird, and a 17th-century double gong.
Many of the items were acquired by Lehman in the 1970s and 1980s through public auctions and art dealers. The museum acknowledged that many of the objects in the Lehman collection can be directly traced to the 1897 looting of Benin.
The broader global reckoning over looted colonial-era artifacts has led many institutions, such as the Smithsonian, to return such items to Africa. Yet the withdrawal of the bronzes from public display and their return to a private collector marks a stark setback in the ongoing debate about rightful ownership and historical justice.
“The heat is really on Western museums” to restitute artifacts to their rightful owners, said Ndubuisi C. Ezeluomba, curator of African art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and an expert on the Benin bronzes, who grew up in the Kingdom of Benin.
Lehman, an award-winning documentary filmmaker, has previously been embroiled in high-profile disputes over contested artworks. Last year, a New York judge awarded a drawing by Egon Schiele — once owned by Lehman — to the heirs of Karl Mayländer, a Jewish textile merchant murdered during the Holocaust
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