When the plane landed in Cotonou, the seat of government of Benin, on Wednesday, cheers broke out. But it wasn’t football stars who returned from a World Cup they had won, but 26 works of art, and they didn’t waving down the gangway, but were pulled out of the cargo plane in boxes. Nevertheless, everyone in Benin knows them, at least the statues of the kings Glélé, Ghézo and Béhanzin. Her return is celebrated on the city’s billboard. “Historique” was the headline of the daily newspaper La Nation.
Within five years he wants to create “the conditions” for stolen art from the former French colonies to return to their countries of origin. President Macron promised that in November 2017. Four years later, not only are the conditions in place, the first transport has arrived: The 26 works from the “Abomey Treasure” were stolen in 1892 by the French army in what was then Dahomey, today’s Benin. (They are not to be confused with the Benin bronzes, which come from Benin City in what is now Nigeria.) On Tuesday, Macron and Benin’s President Patrice Talon solemnly sealed the transfer of ownership in the Élysée Palace in Paris.
This return is less than recommended, but a turning point
26 works, one country: that is far less than Bénédicte Savoy and Felwine Sarr recommended in the report they wrote on behalf of Macron after their trip through the former colonies in Africa. And even after Macron had promised to return the pieces from Benin in 2018, it was still a long time before the National Assembly approved the change in the law that was necessary to remove the pieces from the otherwise inalienable French cultural heritage.
Savoy still considers the return to be a turning point. “There is the world before and the world after,” she told him mirrors. Not least because with the 26 plants not just any depot corpses return. The pieces are among the most important artifacts from Benin, but they were also among the most important exhibits in the Musée du Quai Branly. The Paris Museum was literally built around these sculptures. Savoy might be right in her expectation that many more will follow these returns. Benin’s president has already asked for more returns.