Windsor Castle’s splendour hides a legacy of colonial loot, from Tipu Sultan’s swords to the Koh-i-Noor, raising debates on restitution and justice, Jan Muhammad Shaikh writes.
BREAKING: Three shrunken heads of South American persons and one hand of a mummified person from Egypt are currently offered by Hannam's Auctioneers, The Old Dairy Norton Farm, Selborne, GU34 3NB, Hampshire, UK.
[ in Dutch ] The objects come from a private collection of the descendants of doctor and amateur archaeologist Dr. Hans Feriz. In her will, his daughter had stipulated that the objects collected by her father in the past would be returned to the countries of origin.
Palmanova paid USD$17,340 for the object. But when it was sent by Fedex to Melbourne, it was seized under the Protection of Movable Cultural Heritage Act. And now, the High Court found the artefact was subject to forfeiture, because it is protected.
Social media is helping drive trade in skulls, bones and skin products as UK legal void risks new era of ‘body snatching’. Paul Boateng (Labour Party), who will meet the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, next month to appeal for a change in the law, has raised specific concerns about the trade in remains of ancestors from Indigenous communities.
Nearly five centuries after Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés signed it and decades after someone swiped it from national archives, a priceless manuscript page has been returned by the FBI to Mexico.
Officials from Canadian Heritage have confirmed the federal government has neither the means nor the ability to acquire any of the estimated 4,400 items in the Hudson Bay Company’s (HBC) collection of art and artifacts.
The Indian government has secured the repatriation of ancient gem relics linked to the Buddha’s remains, two months after it halted their auction in Hong Kong. Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, said the return of the Piprahwa gems after 127 years was “a joyous day for our cultural heritage”.
The remains of a woman, described as a “non-European skeleton,” were given a full funeral service by Highgate School, the fee-paying secondary in Highgate Village. No relatives could be found.
Hudson’s Bay Company, North America's oldest company, faces bankruptcy and wants to auction objects amassed from its founding in 1670, but it includes many important pieces of Canada’s First Nations and colonial heritage.
Hotel Drouot has auctioned off three Benin objects, without guaranteeing that they are not related to the British invasion of the Kingdom of Benin in 1897. The provenance only goes to the 1950s and 1960s. It also auctioned Nok and Sokoto objects from Nigeria, both of which are on ICOM's Red List for West Africa.
This working paper offers an inventory of missionary orders and societies active in German colonial regions in Africa and Asia, the information available about them and the options for further research.
Zainab Tahir: The Marine Heritage Gallery, a gallery managed by the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries in Jakarta, sparked conversation about the complexities surrounding the display of three thousand commercially salvaged artefacts.
The Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston returned 27 Benin objects to Robert Lehman, from whom it had received them on loan. Kwame Opoku: The museum's attempt to keep up an ethical image is not convincing.
On May 6, just days before Buddhists around the world celebrate the holiday of Vesak, Sotheby’s Hong Kong will put relics of the Buddha — what Sotheby’s calls the “Piprahwa Gems of the Historical Buddha”— on the auction block.
In an unprecedented move for a United States arts institution, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, will return a promised gift of Benin Bronzes to collector Robert Owen Lehman and close the collection’s dedicated gallery on April 28.
The Mexican Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Culture, through the Legal Advisor’s Office and the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), welcome the restitution of 915 cultural artifacts belonging to the nation's heritage.
Markus Scholz discusses the missionary practice and ideas of the Bavarian Capuchins among the Mapuche in Araucanía in south Chile from 1895–1896 onwards. Distinguishing themselves as defenders of Indigenous land rights and as linguistic experts on the Mapuche language, they also assembled a rich collection of ethnographic artifacts and natural specimens, which could be problematic today. [ open access ]
Resistance hero Ras Desta Damtew was executed by Italian fascists in 1937, after which some of his belongings are believed to have been stolen. Now his grandchildren and the Ethiopian government are fighting to bring them home.
Contributing to current efforts to grapple with museums' colonial legacies, this article takes the question of evidence as an entry point to unlock the multi-layered make-up of African spiritual artifacts in missionary collections.
When repatriation has been largely framed within nation-state contexts, what does it mean to truly foster inclusivity in this process? Is it essential to involve the communities directly affected for such inclusivity to be achieved? What insights can we gain from community-led repatriations regarding local priorities, needs, and cultural practices?
On social media and in auction houses, there is a lively trade in ancestral remains from colonial areas. Skulls, skeletons and other body parts regularly change hands. While this may be an acceptable practice for those involved, it is painful for many descendants of these dead.
Collections in private hands and the trade can contain important objects, while no one has a grip on them. An example is the 18th-century sword stolen by British troops from Seringapatam in India that was featured at the Bonhams auction on May 23rd, 2023.
Buckingham Palace has declined a request to return the remains of an Ethiopian prince who came to be buried at Windsor Castle in the 19th Century. Prince Alemayehu was taken to the UK aged just seven and arrived an orphan after his mother died on the journey.
[ in German ] The Roman-Catholic (RC) Institute for World-Church and Mission (IWM) in Frankfurt am Main is running a two-years pilot-project "Mission-History Collections", funded by two RC organisations.
Unlike the British Museum and other UK national museums, the Royal Collection is able to deaccession, provided that this is advised by its trustees and authorised by the monarch. The collection is not owned personally by Charles, but he holds it in trust as sovereign to pass on to his successor.
[ in Dutch ] They are the most controversial items in the collection of the Dutch Mission Museum in Steyl, Limburg: five human skulls from Papua New Guinea. How did they get there? And why don't the locals want them back?
Sometimes, descendants of Europeans no longer want to keep the objects, manuscripts or ancestral remains, which they inherited. The items have lost their significance. They take up too much space. The descendants want to make some money out of it. Or they feel these items belong more in their country of origin. Descendants use different ways to get rid of them.
[ in French ] Just before the major exhibition "Dakar-Djibouti, counter-investigations", scheduled for 2025 at the Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, in France, Sotheby's is selling part of the collection of the art dealer Hélène The Wolf. A collection built up between the end of the colonial era and the beginning of Mali's independence.
During the European expansion constant fighting and violence and the taking of spoils of war went hand-in-hand. Palaces, shrines, homesteads and entire villages were plundered and destroyed. In the restitution debate, the focus is mostly on state-collections resulting from these confrontations. There is ample evidence, however, that many more parties were involved. This blogpost has soem of the evidence.
Why is research into colonial collections in the private sector - I mean art dealers, auction houses and private collectors - so tough? The main reasons is that most of them have built a wall around themselves, and there is rarely a hole in this wall through which an outside observer can look inside their closed bulwark.
Why is research into colonial collections in the private sector - I mean art dealers, auction houses and private collectors - so tough? The main reasons is that most of them have built a wall around themselves, and there is rarely a hole in this wall through which an outside observer can look inside their closed bulwark.
During the European expansion constant fighting and violence and the taking of spoils of war went hand-in-hand. Palaces, shrines, homesteads and entire villages were plundered and destroyed. In the restitution debate, the focus is mostly on state-collections resulting from these confrontations. There is ample evidence, however, that many more parties were involved. This blogpost has some of the evidence.
[ in French ] Marie-Sophie de Clippele’s book maps the numerous recent regulations relating to legal limitations on the marketing of objects and to assess their impact on the art market.
[ in French ] Relations between ethnographic museums and African and Oceanic art markets in France, Switzerland and Belgium : building value(s) and appropriating otherness
[ in Dutch ] The owner of the museum, the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, wanted the World Museum to admit visitors until the lease expires on December 31, 2024.
Isabella Walsh, an Irish woman, has contacted embassies and consulates in Dublin and London to repatriate 10 African and Aboriginal objects that her father wanted to be returned
The Rosenbach Museum & Library in Philadelphia voluntarily transfers to the custody of the FBI a 16th-century manuscript for return to the Archivo General de la Nación del Perú, the Peruvian national archives.
[ in French ] The auction of an extremely rare African sculpted mask for 4.2 million euros, initially purchased for 150 euros by a second-hand dealer from a French couple, has been validated by the court of Alès (Gard).
Switzerland has returned four mummies to Chile, including two of them among the world’s oldest, after their private owner agreed to their restitution. Other remains, in an “advanced state of degradation”, buried in Geneva.
[ in German ] ‘African human skull, early 20th century, €2000’ - this is how dealers openly advertise human skulls on social media such as Instagram. Panorama reporters uncover just how dubious this trade is, especially when you realise the origin of these skulls.
Once, The Art Newspaper called the historical relationships of the art trade with museums a ‘foggy world’. That was in 2016. I dare say the relationship of trade with museums still is very foggy. How does this relationship look like?
As part of donation agreements with private collectors, such museums could agree to make the objects the focus of courses centred on provenance research and related issues. A key goal of the research would be to trace as complete an ownership history as possible and identify the most likely country of origin for all the objects.
The 2024 report covers the previous year and concludes that the tribal art market has plummeted in 2023, with a global auction turnover of €37.55 million, marking a 37.5% decline, compared with the year 2022.
Tea sets, paravents, spears and shields – even if today’s heirs were not involved in their acquisition or theft, these artefacts are inextricably linked to German colonial history.
The Lebang community in Cameroon has been the recipient of eight (8) significant cultural and spiritual heritages sold in auction and online in The Netherlands and Germany.
Peru’s Ministry of Culture triumphantly reclaimed 202 cultural artifacts, spanning various eras and civilizations, from Germany, Spain, the USA, Canada, and Belgium, showcasing successful international collaboration against illicit trafficking.
[ in Dutch ] The judge has ruled that the collection of the Africa Museum in Berg en Dal is owned by the fathers of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit. The National Museum of World Cultures (NMVW) must return the collection to them.
An international group of two hundred scientists and specialists in predatory art protests against the trade in human remains by the Amsterdam auction house De Zwaan. It is a skull of a person of the Fon people from Benin. The skull was sold last month for eight hundred euros.
At a formal repatriation ceremony at the Okinawa Prefectural Museum and Art Museum in Naha, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Embassy of the United States in Tokyo returned 22 historic artifacts that were looted following the Battle of Okinawa and had been missing for almost 80 years.
Semley Auctioneers – based in Dorset – have made 18 skulls available for auction and estimate each skull will be sold for between £200 and £300. The auction is scheduled to take place on 18 May 2024.
[ in Dutch ] Museum Huis Doorn in the Netherlands, the exiling place where Wilhelm II lived until his death in 1941, owns 36,000 objects from the ex- emperor. How many of these have a colonial origin, and whether there is colonial predatory art, for example, the museum did not know until recently.
The contents were two skulls molded with mud and three large effigies, called rambaramp, each containing the skull of a man, uniquely painted to depict the final stages of his life.
People buy and sell human remains online. Most of this trade these days is over social media. In a study of this 'bone trade', how it works, and why it matters, the authors review and use a variety of methods drawn from the digital humanities to analyze the sheer volume of social media posts in search of answers to questions regarding this online bone trade.
Your auction is soaked in blood—give back Ras Desta Damtew’s medal: An open letter to La Galerie Numismatique in Lausanne. The medal was stolen by a Fascist army invader, its proper recipient unlawfully executed, and now your event practically celebrates the theft and murder.
The contents were two skulls molded with mud and three large effigies, called rambaramp, each containing the skull of a man, uniquely painted to depict the final stages of his life.
Panorama of the Nord Deutsche Rundfunk wrote an extended commentary on a 35-minute-long documentary: ‘African human skull, early 20th century, €2000’ - this is how dealers openly advertise human skulls on social media such as Instagram. Panorama reporters uncover just how dubious this trade is, especially when you realise the origin of these skulls (in German).
Katharina Küng from canton Zurich had a headdress that she had received from her mother hanging on her wall for a long time. “We thought it was the padding of an old suit of armour,” Küng says. It wasn’t until a trip to Namibia that she realised – in the Swakopmund Genocide Museum – that it was a traditional Herero headdress.
Early in October 2024, RM* distributed news about an auction by Swan Fine Art at Tetsworth (UK) of Naga human remains estimated at 3,500 – 4,000 UK pounds. This had infuriated the Forum for Naga Reconciliation and many others.
