A Group of Principled French Art Dealers Teamed Up to Buy 27 Looted African Artifacts at Auction—So They Could Return Them to Benin

A group of antiques dealers in
France joined forces to buy 27 objects looted from Benin in order
to return them to Africa. The private initiative led by
a Paris-based art dealer has upped the ante on the restitution
of African art looted during the colonial era, as French museums
face mounting pressure to respond to a groundbreaking report on
the subject commissioned by President Macron.

Macron pledged more than two years ago to return African
cultural heritage held in French museums, but little movement has been
made since. The valuable items from Benin, which were on offer
at auction, will now go on display at a museum in the country,
which preserves the the royal heritage of the Abomey
kings.

The restituted objects will join
the collection of the Petit Musée de la Récade in Lobozounkpa, a
small museum dedicated to recades, or ceremonial staffs. The carved
recades were important symbols of power of the kings of Dahomey,
who ruled the West African kingdom from the 17th to the end of the
19th century. 

The items, which include
recades, sabers, and Fon objects of worship, are being returned
today, January 17, thanks to an initiative organized by the
Paris-based art dealer Robert Vallois, who runs the Collectif des antiquaires in
Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

“The return of our remnants, the
recades of our Kings to their native land, has made an impression
and continues to awaken the consciousness of our audiences,” the
museum’s curator, Marius Jidé Dakpogan, says in a statement. “May
this effect endure over time! Especially for a youth that knows
almost nothing of its history.”

The objects were sold at auction
in Nantes last year. They come from two European collections that
can be traced back to the era of colonialism: that of Alfred
Testard de Marans, who was involved in a military expedition to
Dahomey in 1890, and that of Father Le Gardinier, a priest who took
part in the mission.

Robert Vallois has been
supporting the Benin museum since 2015, when his collective, along
with a few private collectors, donated 43 objects to form its
founding collection. Since then, Vallois has been steadily
acquiring artifacts for the museum, including on eBay for prices as
low as €250 ($277). Previously, he bought a recade that belonged to
King Glélé for €61,500 ($68,000) at a public sale in France,
according to RFI
Afrique. 

Among the most remarkable
objects in the museum’s collection is a royal recade depicting a
shark, the heraldic symbol of the king. “Not all the pieces
are historical,” Vallois says in a statement, but they are
“fantastic.”

The museum is housed within a
cultural space called Le Centre, just outside of Cotonou. The
institution has also acquired some 31 recades made by contemporary
artists during residencies at the space.

The French president Emmanuel
Macron pledged in a historic speech
in 2017 to return
African heritage held in French museums, but has since faced criticism for
slow progress on the issue. Two years ago he announced that
26 objects looted
from the royal palace of Abomey in 1892 by French troops would be sent back to
Benin, but the objects remain in the Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris.
The French culture minister Franck Riester
recently promised to return them by 2021.

The post A Group of Principled French Art Dealers Teamed Up
to Buy 27 Looted African Artifacts at Auction—So They Could Return
Them to Benin appeared first on artnet News.