France, the spearhead of the restitution of African art objects

Published on : 11/09/2021 – 10:18

More and more of them are taking the plunge. The process of restoring works of art looted during the colonial period has multiplied since the speech delivered by Emmanuel Macron in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, in 2017. The French president then pledged to “restore African heritage in Africa”. This promise takes shape on Tuesday, November 9, with the signing of the deed of transfer of ownership of 26 works of art from Benin to the Republic of Benin.

“President Macron surprised everyone with his promise, we did not expect it. Suddenly, France started to move”, comments to France 24 Marie-Cécile Zinsou, president of the artistic foundation Zinsou .

For this Franco-Beninese, specialist in African art, the phenomenon of renditions is above all “a world movement, which it will be difficult to escape from now on” but “France has undoubtedly ignited a spark” in others. country.

No later than November 5, the mnational museum of African art of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington declared to have unhooked from its collection of the bronzes of the Kingdom of Benin, a territory located in present-day Nigeria. The American cultural institution now plans to initiate a repatriation process for sixteen pieces identified as objects looted during a punitive British expedition in 1897, without any formal request from Nigeria having been made.

The British against any restitution

At the end of October, two universities in the United Kingdom also returned to Nigeria objects looted in Benin. The Scottish Faculty of Aberdeen presented a bronze purchased by the institution in 1957, resulting from the same looting of 1897. In Cambridge, Jesus College returned a bronze sculpture of a rooster, which had been enthroned in the hall since 1905. The statue was donated by a parent of a student, a soldier and a stakeholder in this colonial expedition. Students on the English campus have been calling for his return for years, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement.

On the other hand, no restitution in sight on the side of the British Museum, which nevertheless holds the largest collection in the world of bronzes from Benin with more than 900 pieces. Nigeria wants them back but the British only give a loan. “The British Museum refuses to return the Beninese pieces because they [les Britanniques] fear that Greece will claim the Parthenon friezes from them, “Marie-Cécile Zinsou analyzes. Athens has been asking for the restitution of these works of art taken by the British ambassador in the 19th century for forty years.

Germany plans repatriation in 2022

On the German side, in the wake of France, Berlin signed a memorandum of understanding with Nigeria in mid-October establishing a timetable for the return of around 1,100 Beninese sculptures from its museums. The first repatriations are expected in the second quarter of 2022.

“Many were also wondering about the provenance of these works”, emphasizes Marie-Cécile Zinsou, “but now we have taken action”. In France, new positions dedicated to research on the provenance of works have been created or are in the process of being created, in particular at the Quai Branly museum or at the Angoulême museum, with a large French collection of African art. and Oceanian bequeathed by a Charentais doctor and great art collector in 1934.

The provenance of 40,000 objects studied in Belgium

Belgium, whose AfricaMuseum (former Royal Museum of Central Africa) houses around 85,000 objects from the former Belgian Congo, has also embarked on a long process to identify and study the provenance of thousands of objects. from its former colonies. Thanks to scientific programs initiated by the museum, and with the help of the National Archives, some 35 000 to 40 000 pieces, or half of the Congolese collection, have thus been carefully sifted. From 1,500 to 2,000 works of art are already classified as ill-gotten and are therefore eligible for restitution.

The whole process is part of a vast program unveiled in July by the Belgian Secretary of State in charge of scientific policy, Thomas Dermine. The latter called for “everything that has been acquired by force and violence in illegitimate conditions” be returned. “The objects which were acquired illegitimately by our grandparents, great-grandparents do not belong to us. They belong to the Congolese people,” he added.

“Belgium has started a radical change of course, when it was one of the countries most behind on these questions”, remarks Marie-Cécile Zinsou.

Officially, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has not submitted a request for “restitution” to the Belgian authorities. “Their approach is different”, explains the specialist, who evokes a “reconstruction” on the part of Kinshasa. “A less ethnocentric vision,” she emphasizes.

According to this logic, the Congolese authorities asked Belgium to help them to reconstruct only the missing pieces of the representative collections of certain ethnic groups. Repatriation of heritage organized at their own pace and according to their criteria. These pieces will be housed in the new national museum of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, inaugurated in 2019 by President Félix Tshisekedi. In any case, it can only accommodate, for the moment, 12,000 pieces in optimal conditions of conservation.