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




Linden-Museum Stuttgart: 005401 License: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

Object Name	High relief plaque (copper alloy) depicting an army commander wearing a crown and feather coat, a leopard-teeth necklace, and holding the court ceremonial sword ebenin his hand.
Description	Nailed to the royal palace was this relief plate showing a high-ranking military man. The highest army commander stood in the strict social hierarchy directly under the 7-member crown council ("Orizama") of the "king makers". Among his insignia is the ceremonial sword "eben", which was also used to whirl around during the dances in front of the ancestral altars in order to capture the radiance of the heavenly sun and draw it down to earth. This also includes jewelry such as the necklace of leopard teeth, the bell hanging in front of the chest, the ruff, and the arm and ankle bracelets. Particularly striking is the high headdress and long cloak, which in the original may have been made of feathers or wicker. Text: Dietmar Neitzke.
Type	Figurenrelief
Materials	Copper alloy
Size, Dimensions	Width: 31 cm. Heigth: 45 cm.
Dating of Object

Museum	Linden-Museum Stuttgart
Museum Inv.-No	005401
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)