Collection Connections to the 1897 Military Campaign Henrietta Lidchi, Rosalie Hans and Annette Schmidt

Collection Connections to the 1897 Military Campaign

Henrietta Lidchi, Rosalie Hans and Annette Schmidt

Based on the archival evidence, a number of the 174 extant objects at the NMVW appear to have been looted during a military expedition to Benin City. The ‘Benin Territories Expedition’, more commonly known as the ‘Benin Punitive Expedition’ – was launched by the British in 1897 with Foreign Office approval. A British-led force under the command of the Royal Navy was composed of the Royal Marines, sailors and African soldiers of the Niger Coast Protectorate Forces. On 18 February 1897, British forces looted the Palace of the Oba, or king, of Benin, the palace of the Queen Mother (Iyoba) and the dwellings of the other high-ranking people. As a result, a large number of the artefacts in the NMVW collections can be associated directly with the royal court of the Kingdom of Benin, and many others with political and religious life in Benin City.

The ruler at the time of the looting was Oba Ovonramwen who had been leading the Kingdom of Benin since 1888 and was sent into exile to Calabar after he surrendered to the British in September 1897. The dynasty of Obas can be traced back to the fourteenth century and up to the current Oba Ewuare II who is the 40th person to hold this title (Girshick Ben-Amos 1995: 21; Wikipedia contributors 2020a). Another important courtier was, and is, the Queen Mother, or Iyoba. This is an honorary title first given by Oba Esigie (reign date 1504-1550) to his mother, queen Idia, who is remembered for being ‘the only woman who went to war.’ She was a powerful priestess who helped her son conquer his enemies and expand the kingdom (Kaplan 2007: 144). Oba Esigie built a palace at Uselu outside Benin City for the Iyoba and this tradition has been followed since then (Kaplan 1993, 55). In 1897, Iyoba Ehiya, the mother of Oba Ovonramwen, held the title. Currently, there is no living Iyoba, but Oba Ewuare II bestowed the title on his late mother, Princess Eghiunwe Akenzua, at his coronation in 2016 (Wikipedia contributors 2020b).

In the context of colonial warfare, looting was not an exceptional event. It was an integral part of the machinery of British imperialism that compensated for the cost of warfare and was used to finance military actions. It was moreover a means of rewarding soldiers and officers, who themselves acquired objects on the battlefield and at auction. The British government and its military forces presumed that cultural heritage property taken in war belonged to the British Crown. British forces used several systems to profit from, and disperse property seized: the value of looted material could be sold at auction by a prize agent, effectively a valuer and auctioneer who represented the Crown and had the responsibility to set up the auction. This led to the division of ‘prize money’ in order of rank to serving military and naval forces, but equally to recoup the costs of a campaign. Property could also be seized as ‘indemnity’ in compensation for acts of resistance to British colonial power. As regards Benin artworks looted in the 1897 military action on Benin City, these were divided between the property of the Crown and the British naval and military officers, who received artworks according to rank (Spiers 2020: 30). Some of the artworks deemed Crown property (for example ivory tusks) were put up for sale on the Niger Coast Protectorate while other artworks (for example plaques) were sent to England for sale (Coombes 1994:59), although understanding the precise relationship between army and navy, Crown, Foreign Office and Admiralty remains work to be done (as shown by Hicks 2020:142-149).

Most of the artworks sent to London were immediately given up for auction by the Admiralty or sold by the Foreign Office (Plankensteiner 2007: 33, Hicks 2020: 142-149). William Downing Webster (1868-1913) became the primary dealer in London of Benin artworks, auctioning off a total of 562 objects between 1897-1901. He published catalogues that gave an impressive insight into the wealth and variety of the material sold (Plankensteiner 2007: 34). Christies held an important sale in 1899. The British Museum was the second UK museum to acquire Benin material (the first was the Horniman Museum and Gardens, also in London). The British Museum held a total of 315 plaques on loan from Foreign Office, and The British Museum acquired 203, the remaining were returned to the Foreign Office who sold them on. In addition to the British art market, where the Foreign Office sold its official spoils of war and where members of the expedition offered their Benin artworks, there existed a second, no less important sales route from the Niger Coast Protectorate that led directly to Hamburg. In Germany the first museum to acquire Benin artworks was the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg – that acquired in 1897 – and German collections quickly outpaced British collections. This route functioned via the intermediary of German trading companies with settlements on the Niger Coast. Our aim in briefly recounting the trajectory of Benin artworks from Nigeria to Europe is not to provide a detailed and comprehensive historical account. Rather it is to set a context for the analysis contained in this report.

In assessing the strength of connection between the NMVW collections and the 1897 British-led attack and looting of Benin City, we have used a number of factors. The most reliable link is accession/ acquisition date. The movement of artworks into European collections was extremely limited before 1897 and very lively after 1897. Factoring this in and acknowledging the trading links between West Africa, Great Britain and Germany that resulted, we propose that those items entering into NMVW collections between 1897-1918 are a direct consequence of the events in 1897. Where there is some arthistorical evidence, or there is evidence of artworks coming into the collections in the mid or late 20th century but with links to earlier collectors, dealers and institutions whose collections are known to have included collections from 1897, a probable link is traced.

For some of the NMVW collections no reliable link can be established to the Benin Punitive Expedition. For a number, the connection with the 1897 campaign seems unlikely as they do not appear to be from

Benin City, or were made after 1897. These conclusions were drawn using information available, such as date of acquisition, knowledge of the acquisition-related person and their personal and professional background, available museum documentation, object characteristics, and, where present, dating of external experts. In some cases, literature and other museum databases have been consulted for extra information. Dates of acquisition later than 1918 are considered less likely to be linked to the British military campaign but the factors mentioned above may make a production date pre-1897 or post-1897 more or less likely.