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France and Germany To Investigate Provenance Of African Artefacts In National Museums

Ione Gildroy
Interior of the Louvre, Paris.

Ione Gildroy

France and Germany have co-created a €2.1m (£1.8m) fund to further research the provenance of African cultural artefacts in their national museums.

WHAT IS THE FUND?

The fund will see three years of consistent annual contributions of €360,000 from each country.

It will finance research into the provenance of objects from sub-Saharan Africa, though research is expected to prioritise cultural items that were looted by French and German colonisers.

Following colonial rule in the continent, artefacts of African origin have been placed in museum collections across both European countries, and African leaders and scholars have been calling for their return. In 2020, it was estimated that 80 to 90 per cent of cultural items from the sub-Saharan region are being held in other countries.

“We are launching it with the widest possible criteria, so that both small and biggest projects can apply.”

Dr Julie Sissia, researcher at the Franco-German research centre responsible for the fund, Centre Marc Bloch, said: “This is an experimental fund.

“We are launching it with the widest possible criteria, so that both small and biggest projects can apply. The only requirement of the projects is that they are led by mixed French and German teams from academia and museums.”

Germany’s federal commissioner for culture and media, Claudia Roth, said the project “shows that cooperations – across borders, and between science and culture – make important projects like this one possible and are much needed in challenging times like these.”

CULTURAL RESTITUTION

Germany colonised Cameroon in the late 19th century, and the majority of Cameroonian objects held in European museums were taken during this German colonial rule.

German museums hold the largest number of objects from Cameroon in the world, owning around 40,000 cultural items and artworks. This is more than what is currently held in Cameroon’s state collections.

Historian Bénédicte Savoy, who sits on the scientific committee of the new fund, said: “No country holds more of Cameroonian cultural heritage than Germany, widely distributed.”

Savoy clarified differences in the acquisitions of artefacts by colonial France and Germany.

“The Germans used Cameroon first, and a lot of blood was shed to build up the Germanic collections from that country, whereas the French, who arrived in the 1920s-1930s, carried out scientific expeditions,” Savoy said.

Around 20 Nigerian bronzes were recently returned by Berlin as part of the initiative.

The debate surrounding reparations came to the forefront in France in 2017 when President Emmanuel Macron announced that he would “do everything possible” to return African cultural objects that were looted by colonial France.

In 2021, France returned 26 artefacts to Benin. However, continued cultural restitution has slowed since policy drafting that would allow the return of African artefacts stalled last year.

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Featured image courtesy of via Flickr. No changes made to this image. Image license found here.

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