The Benin collection of the British Museum is one of the world’s most prominent. Benin objects fall into two distinct groups – the works of ivory and cast metal (’Bronzes’), made by court artists as marks of royal distinction, and the exquisite carved ivories made as souvenirs for the foreigners who were among the first Europeans to visit West Africa. While the latter objects have been in the West since the sixteenth century, the former were almost unknown when they were dramatically revealed at the end of the nineteenth century and both the general public and professional ‘experts’ on Africa struggled to incorporate them into the world as then known.

(more…)