How the restitution of works of art to Africa started and what remains to be done

At the British Museum in London, visitors contemplate a controversial exhibition of bronzes from Benin.

The museum has 900 Beninese works and is slow to return them.

SOPA Images / LightRocket via Gett - SOPA Images

Text by: Olivier Favier Follow

7 mins

Captured mainly during the colonial period, almost all the works of classical African art are today found outside Africa.

To the inalienability of the collections put forward by the public authorities, there are now opposing legislative responses which seek to leave the symbolic ground of the exception for massive restitutions, in a few European countries.

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On November 28, 2017, the new President of the French Republic Emmanuel Macron expressed the wish

that " 

 ". His remarks follow a speech in Algiers in February of the same year, where, as a candidate for the elections, he described colonization as a " 

".

In March 2018, the economist

from the University of Saint-Louis in Senegal and the art historian Bénédicte Savoy from the Technical University of Berlin and the College de France were entrusted with the drafting of a report. officially delivered eight months later, in November.

It is centered on a major area of ​​the former French Empire: sub-Saharan Africa.

In France, the Savoy-Sarr report reiterates the urgency of restitutions

" 

," specify the author and author,

 "

►

" 

," recalls Nora Philippe in her documentary

(Arte, 2021),

 "

A first symbolic restitution is that of the

, first loaned to the Museum of Black Civilizations in Dakar in 2018. The following year, an official ceremony in the presence of Prime Minister Édouard Philippe transforms the loan into a promise restitution, which was validated in December 2020 by a law passed in Parliament.

The latter also provides for

, which are part of the looting orchestrated by General Dodds during the second Dahomey war in 1892. They then joined the public collections of the Trocadéro Ethnographic Museum, then those of the Musée de l'Homme and finally the Musée du Quai-Branly Jacques-Chirac in 2003.

The need for a framework law

During the official restitution ceremony to Benin, on October 27, 2021, Emmanuel Macron expressed his desire to move

order to no longer legislate on a case-by-case basis. Two weeks earlier, he announced the return to Côte d'Ivoire

. On December 15, the Senate presented a bill, aimed at ensuring that these restitutions were no longer the sole responsibility of the Elysee, in other words subject to the vagaries and interests of the executive power and rightly perceived as "

".

 ”. " 

 ", explains Nora Philippe " 

 ”.

Royal anthropo-zoomorphic half-man half-bird statue of King Ghézo of Dahomey, one of the 26 works returned on October 27, 2021. © CC-BY-SA-4.0 - Wikimedia Commons / Ji-Elle

Works held in national collections are in fact protected by the principle of inalienability, which requires, in the absence of a new legal framework, to vote on a case-by-case basis to create exceptions. As we have seen previously, the restitution in due form has sometimes been changed to a simple revolving loan, for example to ensure, for example, in a total improvisation the signing of a TGV contract with Korea, as was the case.

. This last resort was also favored for the restitution in 2020 of

in Madagascar, this time pending a specific law.

In addition to that of works of art, there is the question of "

 " which, in order to be returned, must also be the subject of an official request and then a declassification, as was the case for the remains of

, known as the Hottentot Venus, in 2002. The subterfuge of the five-year loan was taken to absurdity in July 2020 when

against French colonization were sent back to Algeria, where they were immediately buried in the square of the martyrs of the cemetery of El Alia, where the remains of Emir Abdelkader rest.

Belgium and Germany go beyond the symbolic

Elsewhere in Europe, responses are taking place at different levels, without a common will.

In 2005, Italy engaged in the spectacular and symbolic

, stolen in 1937 by the fascist regime.

However, this event did not give rise to a more global questioning, any more than in the Vatican, which nevertheless holds among the richest ethnographic collections in the world and where no restitution has been mentioned so far.

Relocation of the Aksum Obelisk in Ethiopia, in 2008. © CC-BY-SA-3.0 - Wikimedia Commons / Michel Ravassard

In Belgium, the beginning of the year 2022 will see the tabling of a bill for a massive declassification,

.

, “ 

 In Great Britain,

concerning the restitution of some 900 Benin bronzes still in its possession contrasts with the actions proposed by the Universities of Aberdeen or Cambridge. If London does nothing, Germany will be

to return the goods looted by the British during the destruction of Benin City in 1897, of which a thousand pieces arrived in German museums through the art market.

Of course, the question of restitution arose and arises outside the framework of colonial conquests.

In 2020, Bénédicte Savoy also devoted a series of lessons to the Collège de France entitled

, where it wonders about the fate of property looted during the wars of the Revolution and the Empire.

►

We can also recall the steps taken by Greece for the restitution of the Parthenon friezes and of course the pioneering work of Austria which could today serve as a model.

In 1998, a unique law was passed there, which paved the way for a major investigation into public collections in order to find items stolen by the Nazis.

By the scale of the spoliations and the denial of which they were the object for a long time, however, no one doubts today that in terms of restitution,

.

Our selection on the subject:

• To listen :

→ For Oswald Padonou, political scientist: "What is important is to create a legal framework".

Explanations from Bénédicte Savoy, art historian

→ Marie-Cécile Zinsou (Zinsou foundation): “Safeguard the African cultural heritage.

»

→ Angélique Kidjo on the restitution of Beninese works

→ Interview with Bénédicte Savoy and Felwine Sarr in 2020

• To read :

→ The Savoy-Sarr report mentions final restitutions

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