Benin Bronzes

Benin bronzes can date back as early as the 12th century, yet in them past and present fuse.

As a result much of the country's art, including the Benin Bronzes, was either destroyed, looted or dispersed.

It is famous for its reconstructed houses from around the world, its boats, and its many Benin bronzes.

British experts claim the famous Benin bronzes were rescued only because the British seized them in the 19th century.

Some African art scholars have discerned European stylistic influences in Benin bronzes.

A few sculptural types - Benin bronzes, Fang reliquary figures - have become museum staples.

The British and the Benin Bronzes.

For example, the famous Benin bronzes were seized by British forces during a punitive raid in 1897; Nigeria has long sought their restitution.

The country of Benin has no connection to Benin City in modern Nigeria, nor to the Benin bronzes.

Most of the Benin bronzes went first to purchasers in Germany, but a sizeable group is now back in London at the British Museum.

Treasures like its famous Benin bronzes are included, but the galleries also emphasize works from traditionally underrepresented regions, like North Africa and Madagascar.

Harris went on a tour of Africa, looking at different styles on African art, including rock art, Makonde wood carving and Benin Bronzes.

In 1936, Oba Akenzua II began the movement to return the corpus of objects now known in modern discourse as the 'Benin Bronzes'.

The amendment of the Act would, therefore, be a necessary precursor of the return of items such as the Elgin Marbles or Benin Bronzes.

The Benin Bronzes were seized by a British force in the Benin Expedition of 1897 and given to the British Foreign Office.

Artworks From Benin Bronzes by the Benin people of western Africa are among the most important works in next week's auctions of tribal art in London.

The Benin Bronzes are a collection of more than 900 brass plaques from the royal palace of the Kingdom of Benin (located in present day Nigeria).

In 1936, Oba Akenzua began the movement to return back to Nigeria the Benin Bronzes stolen in the punitive Benin Expedition of 1897.

Gus Casely-Hayford presented 'Lost Kingdoms of Africa', a set of four television programmes for the BBC in 2010, covering the Benin Bronzes.

The Benin Bronzes are really brass, and the Romanesque Baptismal font at St Bartholomew's Church, Liège is described as both bronze and brass.

Directly behind the array of monumental Benin bronzes, for example, is a case holding fragile pieces of 20th-century jewelry from Dahomey, including a bracelet bearing a tiny airplane picked out in silver filigree.

"But the Benin bronzes were in the dining room of their Fifth Avenue apartment, and the Kota pieces were in the African guest bedroom in their Newport mansion.

Last year, he sold a mini-collection of 276 works of art from Nigeria, including numerous Benin bronzes, to the Museum of African and Oceanic Art in Paris for around $8 million.

Hong Kong, in particular, is said to be a major center for forging ancient Chinese porcelain, while artists in Africa and Mexico are skilled at forging, say, Benin bronzes and Olmec figures respectively.

The most famous pieces are a collection of sculptures, the Benin Bronzes (actually made of brass), which were produced in an ancient kingdom now part of Nigeria but bordering the modern nation of Benin.