German Contact Point for Collections from Colonial Contexts: Benin-Bronzes in Germany




Linden-Museum Stuttgart: 005371 License: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

Object Name	High relief (copper alloy) plaque depicting a crocodile head
Description	This completely preserved brass plate from the Royal Palace shows the head of a crocodile. This animal lives on land as in water and therefore symbolizes the connection of these elements. The god of water (Olokun), who rules like a king, can send crocodiles on land to punish people. However, crocodiles can also bring people into the realm of Olokun. The rather flat relief of this plate speaks for an early date of origin shortly after 1550. Later, the figures rise more and more into high relief until they finally emerge fully sculptural and are only connected to the base plate by a narrow bar at the back. Text: Dietmar Neitzke.
Type	Relief
Materials	Copper alloy
Size, Dimensions	Length: 49 cm. Width: 31 cm.
Dating of Object

Museum	Linden-Museum Stuttgart
Museum Inv.-No	005371
Collector	Felix von Luschan (Berlin) purchased a large number of royal objects produced in the Benin Kingdom and sold parts of the collection to other museums. The objects reserved for Stuttgart were paid by Karl Knorr (Heilbronn, Germany).
Acquisition date	1899
Circumstances of acquisition	In October 1898, the Hamburg company "H. Bey & Co" offered the Berlin Ethnological Museum a Benin collection that came directly from Africa. However, due to a lack of funds, the entire collection could not be purchased and was therefore to be passed on to other interested parties. Felix von Luschan of the Berlin Museum therefore informed Karl Graf von Linden in November 1898, and offered him a right of first refusal. The Linden Museum then made 15,000 M available for the purchase of objects. The purchase price was paid by the Heilbronn entrepreneur Karl Knorr, which is why the collection became known as "Die Karl Knorr'sche Sammlung von Benin-Altertümern". Von Luschan published a detailed description of the collection under the same title (1901) on behalf of Count Linden and Knorr. Other buyers of the collection included the museums in Vienna and Munich, but also people such as Hans Meyer (Leipzig) and Eugen Rautenstrauch (Cologne). Text: Markus Himmelsbach.

Notes

Status	restituted
Date of last status change	14 December 2022
Current ownership	Federal Republic of Nigeria
Holding institution	National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM, Nigeria)
Current location	Linden Museum Stuttgart (permanent loan)