Both works are directly linked to the 1897 raid.
They were purchased by Augustus Pitt-Rivers (1827–1900) for the Pitt-Rivers Museum in Farnham, England. This museum closed in the 1960s and its collections were dispersed.
Robert Owen Lehman acquired the two works as he built his collection of Benin Kingdom artwork between the 1960s and 1980s, and donated them to the MFA in 2013 and 2018.
Three works of art from the Benin Kingdom remain in the MFA’s collection. The provenance of these items is inconclusive. They can be traced to the European and American art markets in the second half of the 20th century, and it is not known for certain when or how they left Benin. Research on these objects is ongoing.
The transfer of the two from the collection of R.O. Lehman is remarkable, since earlier this year Lehman want 27 Benin objects back, which he had loaned to the MFA in Boston.
