MFA will shutter gallery of Benin bronze sculptures

MFA will shutter gallery of Benin bronze sculptures

The collection of bronze and ivory masterpieces will be returned to collector Robert Owen Lehman. He had lent the objects to the MFA in 2012 and “pledged to give them to the museum over time,” according to museum leadership. But that agreement is now rescinded by both parties. The gallery will close April 28.

See historic bronzes displayed in MFA’s prized — and now doomed — Benin Kingdom Gallery - The Boston Globe

The wealthy donor who pledged them to the museum asked they be returned to him amid talks to transfer ownership to their African land of origin.

MFA Boston to return Benin Bronzes to wealthy donor, close gallery

The unusual move follows years of negotiations between the museum, the collector and the Kingdom of Benin

Museum’s Benin Bronzes Are Reclaimed by Wealthy Collector

When it began displaying a group of finely crafted treasures from the Kingdom of Benin in 2013, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, acknowledged that British soldiers had plundered thousands of such sculptures and other items from that land in 1897. The collection of some 30 objects — including what the museum described as a “particularly excellent” sculpture of a warrior on horseback — had been lent by a wealthy scion and collector with the promis…