New issue

Issues of 2008

Hunt for African Art

In XVI century the colonial trade expansion of European countries started in India, Indonesia and Africa. Century by century Portuguese, Spaniards, Dutchmen, Englishmen and Frenchmen were advancing east wards. In the beginning the objectives of colonizers were Eastern rarities, spicery in the first row, and then slaves and artworks.

Court of the ruler of African state. Relief. XVII. Benin. The British Museum, London [zoom (110k)]

In the history of Africa XIX century became the time of feverish usurpation of land by colonizers, adventurers and small groups of military men who were ready to serve anyone. The discovery of diamond deposits Kimberley not far from junction of the rivers Vaal and Orange caused diamond rush and the flow of prospectors from all over the world. Gold deposits in Transvaal predetermined the building of new cities like Johannesburg and the foundation of powerful company ╚De Biers╩.

Having got the charter for the right to rule the purchased or captured territories from Queen Victoria, South-African Company organized a number of exhibitions to different ends of Africa. On the traversed paths new trading stations and colonies were created. Thus an English colony Rhodesia, Nyasaland protectorate, was founded. Real fights happened between the inhabitants of Western Africa who had their proto-states from the ancient time in the valleys of rivers Volta and Niger. The joint tribes practiced Islam, had their traditions of military art and their chiefs-commanders. There Europeans didn▓t limit themselves to the usurpation of land, but destroyed former settlements, exported artistic and historic values. In 1861 the Englishmen captured Lagos, having created administration Sierra-Leone, and from there accomplished punitive raids, enlarging their captures┘

In 1486 Portuguese Diego Cao bought up ivory objects from the adventurers and tradesman who returned from Africa. In XVI century Tyrolean archduke Ferdinand sent trade representatives to the different ends of Europe who bought up sculpture and masks exported from colonies of Spain and Portugal. It is known that among them there were whole elephant▓s tusks, decorated with carved scenes of hunt and military battles. Such items were part of the collection of the King Francis I who had his envoys in Africa. Wooden sculptures from the coastal regions of Niger are stored in Dresden Cabinet of Curiosities.

Ruler with his court. Relief. XII. Benin. The British Museum, London [zoom (134k)]

The artworks of Benin that was founded in Africa in 1440 by the King Evoire the Great ≈ the direct descendant of God Oduduva are even more important in terms of art and history. Having captured the surrounding towns and villages, King Evoire turned Benin into a rich state with a huge palace, 11-km earth bank and rather decent dwellings in the streets of the city. In 1473 the data of the richness of Benin led Portuguese traders to its walls, Englishmen and Dutchmen followed them. Apart from the hunt for gold belonging to Africans they started to search for statues of gods, ivory and documentary witnesses of life of the African society. The rulers of Benin created small brass plates (30 x 15 cm) on which the most important events and traditions from the past of the times of king▓s authority of the city-state could be found. On the plates the King▓s power over the subjects, over the conquered tribes and over death was claimed. The relieves were attached to the columns of the King▓s palace and served as a kind of chronicles for the subjects.

There are European descriptions (by Dapper, geographer) of King▓s palace in Benin, the very palace that was destroyed by the British troops during the time of military operation of 1897, having in advance exported all the artistic objects of bronze, wood, stone and, of course, all ritual decorations, that were used during the ceremonies, related to the cult of the ancestors.

Among the cultural riches of Nigeria that are stored in London there is an ivory mask of the XVI century that is part of the holiday dressing of the king of city-state Benin during divine ceremonies. This is the most famous mask out of five, exported by the participants of punitive expeditions. Two of them, having changed the owners turned out to be parts of American collections; one is in the museum of Germany and one more ≈ in private collection.

In 1977 Nigeria addressed with an official demand to return the mask, as it was proclaimed to be an emblem of the Second Festival of All-African and Afro-American Art that was held in Lagos. But British authorities refused, having referred to the decree that was edited 100 years ago, that prohibits to export the exhibits from the British Museum out of the confines of the country. The additional argument for the refusal was the care about the object and the fact that it is very fragile and wouldn▓t withstand the travel and climate changes.

Silver dollar issued in 1791 by the British Sierra Leone Company. The British Museum, London [zoom (30k)]

The British Museum keeps more than 2000 items in its funds that represent the art and history of Nigeria. Bronze swords and ceremonial belongings are included into the exhibition. There are bronze bas-relieves with the images of genre scenes, bronze heads, among them the amazing ╚Head of a Princess╩ with high head-dress that gives the touch of ardour and youth to the sculpture, masks, rods, pendants, scepters, saltcellars, figurines of animals and birds.

The scientists supposed that the art of casting was brought to Africa by the Portuguese. But in Europe the art castings wasn▓t known then. The versions about the origin of the craft from India, from Arabs or from Northern Africa were invented in order to prove the impossibility of existence of masterpieces by African aboriginals.

The originality of casting, masks and wooden sculpture is so organic that it can originate only from national traditions. Huge hunter▓s horns, produced in Africa in the XV century were bought for the collection of ivory. They are part of the complex to which belonged two leopards that once stood on the sides of the throne of Benin ruler. Each sculpture is carved out of five elephant▓s tusks. The spots on the fur are made of brass and the eyes ≈ of the pieces of mirror.

Among the treasures of Nigeria there is plastic and richly decorated with ornament figurine of trumpeter (beginning of the XVI century), musical instruments, ceramics, batiks and other objects of folk crafts.

Bronze trophy head. Benin, Nigeria. Between 1550√1650. The British Museum, London [zoom (18k)]

The law prohibiting the export of National treasures from the country was adopted only in 1953, but among the objects collected for the first museum of Nigerian Art in Jos it is difficult to find an object of the same artistic level as the objects that are stored in Britain. The epoch of colonization of Africa was over long time ago. Many countries are freed from the dependence and are developed in their own way. Even natural resources that were extracted in a barbaric way only 100 years ago are included into the turnover of world economics. But the art objects, the very masks and sculptures, continue to excite museum experts and collectors.

Historian of Africa L. Chapygin collected a card index of ╚movement╩ of artistic values throughout the world. In the bulletin of 1982, devoted to primordial art, the disappearance of the tomb sculpture of Yoruba tribe that was exhibited in New York at the exhibition and was ╚lost╩ there is described.

Many people were impressed by an unprecedented theft of a bronze head of Oduduva ≈ one of the main gods in pantheon of religions of Yoruba from the Museum of Nigeria.

A businessman, whose name is not mentioned, paid 600 thousand dollars for these objects; it is likely that he himself ordered the theft.

╚Newsweek╩ reported that in 1980 one of the employees of the National Museum in Lagos stole nine figurines from the collection of Benin art. Three of them were found in New-York with the museum numbers broke off. And the seller of museum values Karl Logan was arrested, but the stolen objects were not returned to Africa.