The return of the two plaques represents a success story of provenance research and voluntary, international restitution.
Thedy also reveal a tension and hypocrisy inherent in the display of cultural objects looted from the Kingdom of Benin. The Met returned the plaques solely on the virtue of second-order theft, not their original looting perpetrated by the British in the nineteenth century.
The museum did not return the many other plaques looted from the palace of the oba.
In fact, it recently reinstalled them as part of its collection in the new Michael C. Rockefeller Wing for the arts of Africa, the ancient Americas, and Oceania.
This raises important questions about the legal and ethical landscapes around art theft, stolen cultural heritage, and the mechanics of return and illuminates the ways in which Western actors’ obscure the provenance of African ancient art to evade accountability.
