Across Europe, political upheaval is disrupting efforts to return colonial-era museum acquisitions to their countries of origin. But in the UK—where the previous Conservative government was largely opposed to colonial restitutions—the Labour government elected last year appears open to making progress.
Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, faces mounting calls to review current legislation preventing museums from restituting or deaccessioning works, and is holding talks with museum directors. Under the National Heritage Act 1983, the trustees of some national museums in the UK, including the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) and the Science Museum group, are specifically prevented from de-accessioning objects that are the property of the museum unless they are duplicates or irreparably damaged.
The British Museum—confronted with constant calls to return the Parthenon Marbles to Greece—says it is prevented from doing so by another act of Parliament, the British Museum Act 1963, which forbids the museum from disposing of its holdings.
I sense there is a growing appreciation the status quo cannot last
Tristram Hunt, director, V&A
“I sense there is a growing appreciation the status quo cannot last,” says Tristram Hunt, the director of the V&A. “The new government seems to be showing interest in revising the legislation to allow trustees of national museums greater autonomy over their collections.”
Despite the legal obstacles to restituting artefacts taken from former colonies, many UK institutions not hamstrung by the laws applying to national museums have returned items to countries of origin. Among the first to pledge to restitute Benin bronzes to Nigeria, for instance, were the universities of Aberdeen and Cambridge.
But at the government level, the UK has so far adopted no policy initiatives to encourage museums to restitute colonial heritage. This contrasts with France, Germany and Austria, which have all taken steps to establish structures and legal frameworks for restitution over the past few years.
Political turmoil in these three countries is now hampering progress. It is seven years since President Emmanuel Macron of France sparked worldwide debate around the restitution of colonial artefacts with his declaration in Burkina Faso that “African heritage can’t just be in European private collections and museums.” Since then, France’s restitution journey has been arduous.
In January 2022, France’s senate approved a bill—proposed by senators Catherine Morin-Desailly, Max Brisson and Pierre Ouzoulias—to set up a national expert commission that would be consulted on any future non-European restitution cases. The draft bill also proposed a law facilitating the restitution of human remains held in French public collections, which was adopted in December 2023. In June 2023, the National Assembly voted unanimously to adopt a new law that allows public institutions to return Nazi-looted objects in their collections.
But no date has yet been fixed for a bill on colonial items, the third part of the senators’ proposal, to be debated in the National Assembly. “The third framework law on the restitution of colonial spoliations was to be submitted to parliament in the spring” of 2024, Ouzoulias tells The Art Newspaper. Efforts stalled in the wake of Macron’s decision to call snap parliamentary elections last June, he says. The dissolution of the government and election “interrupted this schedule”, he adds.
Slowed to a trickle
An important object from the Ivory Coast housed at the Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris will, however, be returned to its native country. In November, the Djidji Ayôkwé drum—used by the Ébrié community to warn against danger—was transferred to the Ivorian government—but only, for now, as a long-term loan. Transferring ownership will require another law that is expected to pass early this year.
In Germany, the culture ministers of the 16 states agreed back in 2019 to create the conditions to repatriate artefacts in public collections that were taken “in ways that are legally or morally unjustifiable today”, pledging to develop restitution procedures. But since Germany’s high-profile agreement in 2022 to return 1,100 Benin bronzes to Nigeria, restitutions of colonial-era heritage have slowed to a trickle. After the ceremonial handover of the first 22 bronzes, the outgoing Nigerian president named the oba (king) of Benin as the owner of the returning artefacts, sparking consternation in Germany that world heritage could disappear into the royal collection and not be on public view. Newspapers declared the returns a “fiasco” and a “scandal”.
While the cabinet this month approved a new arbitration tribunal to evaluate claims for Nazi-looted art, no progress on central processes for colonial-era restitutions can be envisaged before the next election, which is now expected to take place on 23 February.
Austria, too, is caught in a holding pattern. In June 2023, Andrea Mayer, then the culture secretary, had promised to propose legislation governing the restitution of colonial-era acquisitions in national museums by March 2024. But this proposal was not approved by the government before the September election, in which the far-right Freedom Party won almost 29% of the vote, becoming the biggest party. Coalition negotiations to form a new government were still under way as we went to press.
The proposed law is “on hold until we get a new government”, says Jonathan Fine, the new director general of the Kunsthistorisches Museumsverband. “The proposal still needs some fine tuning, and we will have to see what the composition of the new government here in Austria is.”
A bowl from Bali, one of 68 artefacts returned by the city of Rotterdam to Indonesia Municipality of Rotterdam
In contrast to Austria and Germany, structures and mechanisms for restitution in the Netherlands were already in place before a new government—led by the far-right PVV—took office in July. The previous government, led by Mark Rutte, adopted proposals by a panel of experts in 2021, setting up the independent Colonial Collections Committee led by Lilian Gonçalves-Ho Kang You. The committee has so far recommended the return of 800 items to Indonesia and Sri Lanka. Rotterdam became the first Dutch city to restitute colonial-era objects last November.
The most immediate threat to continuing Dutch restitutions is budget cuts that may impact provenance research at museums, says Jos van Beurden, an expert on colonial-era loot. The biggest government-funded research project, Pressing Matter, is financed until the end of this year. “Will they then be able to get money for it?” Van Beurden questions. “The critical moment comes at the end of 2025.”
UK government in discussions
Counter to the European trend, the debate is moving forward in the UK. In an interview with The Guardian last year, Nandy said ministers are already holding discussions with institutions including the British Museum, after its chair, the former chancellor George Osborne, approached her. Views across the museum sector vary, but Nandy wants the government’s approach to be consistent, the report said.
“It’s exciting that Nandy has publicly spoken about it,” says Amy Shakespeare, an academic at Exeter University and the founder of the organisation Routes to Return. Shakespeare published a policy briefing paper last November arguing that UK national museums and galleries should be given powers to act independently regarding restitution.
“I’m taking that as a positive indication,” she says. “This is difficult to do without changing the historic legislation for the British Museum. There is a nervousness about undoing that. We have a lot of experience compared to other countries and could be in a strong position internationally. The next piece in the puzzle is making this a priority.”
Shakespeare says that the UK government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport should partly fund provenance research, training and skills programmes. National museums should be “included in Sections 15 and 16 of the 2022 Charities Act, enabling them to repatriate cultural items on moral grounds”, she adds.
Early last year, the former Conservative government excluded national museums and galleries from Sections 15 and 16 legislation. Hunt says that in view of the change of government, an update to the Charities Act might be a way to allow restitutions, “but rightly, ministers want to have an open and public debate about such a change”.
One museum funded by Nandy’s department has already returned works to Nigeria under the Charities Act. In November 2022, the Horniman Museum and Gardens in south London formally transferred ownership of 72 Benin objects to Nigeria. A new display unveiled at the Horniman Museum and Gardens last month features some of the Benin objects returned to Nigerian ownership. (Of the 72 objects, six were physically returned in 2022, with the rest remaining at the Horniman under a loan agreement.)
“The national museums are all covered by primary legislation, which usually says words to the effect: ‘You can’t give stuff away,’” says Nick Merriman, the former chief executive and director of content at the Horniman, in this writer’s forthcoming book, Towards the Ethical Art Museum. “We, like most other museums, were covered just by charity law.”
Current guidance from the Charity Commission says that trustees need to provide “clear and impartial” evidence of a “moral obligation” in order to transfer ownership of property, including a copy of the minutes of the meeting in which this was decided.
“The arguments that the Charity Commission seem to be accepting are these moral ones,” Merriman says.
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Publish date : 2025-01-13 16:00:00
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