“These works of art are stained with the blood of the children of Biafra,” Chika Okeke-Agulu, a professor of art history at Princeton, wrote in a passionate Instagram post three weeks ago asking to stop the sale of two wooden statues made by the igbo. Nigerian Okeke-Agulu believes the items were looted in the late 1960s during the country’s brutal civil war.
But the auction was held Monday at Christie’s in Paris. The life-size male and female figures, described by Christie’s as “one of the greatest sculptures in African art,” were sold to a bidder online for € 212,500 with fees, about $ 238,000. The price was well below the pre-sale estimate of € 250,000 to € 350,000.
The sculptures originated in southeastern Nigeria, a region devastated by one of the bloodiest civil conflicts of the late 20th century. Biafra’s unsuccessful three-year struggle for independence, which ended in 1970, claimed the lives of more than a million people, most of whom died of starvation.
Mr. Okeke-Agulu, who grew up in the Biafra war zone, near where the statues were made, said in his Instagram post that Christie’s Igbo figures were among many artifacts stolen by intermediaries at the behest of merchants and European and American collectors, such as the renowned French collector Jacques Kerchache.
Christie’s named Mr. Kerchache, who was instrumental in founding the Quai Branly Museum, which exhibits artifacts from the former French colonies, as the former owner of these sculptures. The auction house said the collector acquired them from an African distributor in 1968 or 1969, either in Cameroon or Paris, before another private collector acquired them on Monday.
In a statement prior to the auction, Christie’s responded to Mr. Okeke-Agulu’s Instagram post, saying the sale of the statues was legitimate and legal. “There is no evidence that these statues were removed from their original location by someone who was not a local in the area,” the statement said, adding that Kerchache never went to Nigeria in 1968 or 1969 and that Christie’s had worked to reassure all inquiries. . regarding the origin and legitimacy of the sale.
Mr. Okeke-Agulu’s voice is one of many calling for the repatriation of African works of art in European and American collections believed to have been acquired through colonial exploitation or illegal looting.
In November 2018, a report commissioned by the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, recommended that French museums permanently repatriate works of art removed from Africa without consent, if their countries of origin request their return. Subsequently, Macron announced that 26 pieces looted by French forces would be returned from the Quai Branly Museum. However, they remain in France, awaiting the construction of a suitable host museum in Benin.
Earlier this month, with the repatriation process nearly paralyzed, a group of protesters stormed the Quai Branly in a failed attempt to remove an African funeral pole.
In London, several “Benin Bronzes”, celebrated metal reliefs taken by British soldiers in 1897, remain in the British Museum with no plans for their return.
However, the circumstances of the withdrawal of Christie’s Igbo figures from Nigeria are darker.
Bernard de Grunne, the Brussels-based merchant who sold the sculptures in 2010 to the seller at Christie’s, wrote in an email that: “We cannot connect them to the chaos caused by the Biafran war, as we don’t know exactly when they arrived” . outside of Nigeria They could have left at any time between 1968 and 1983. “
“You can also make an inverse argument that these great works of art were saved for the world to admire at the time, rather than being burned and destroyed during the war,” he added.
But Mr. Okeke-Agulu remains convinced that the sculptures were looted in the conflict. “There is some lasting anxiety about anything having to do with Biafra due to the indescribable horror of that war,” Okeke-Agulu said in an interview before the sale. “With the World War II restitution cases, they were works of art taken from Europeans by Europeans. When it comes to Africa, because Africa doesn’t matter, it’s business as usual. That cannot continue to be the case. “
Mr. Okeke-Agulu also cited the work of another scholar, Sidney Littlefield Kasfir. In her 2007 book, Ms. Littlefield Kasfir demonstrated that during the Biafran War, “substantial looting of the shrines by the fighters took place and many intermediaries moved many objects across the border to Cameroon, from where they were bought by merchants and shipped to Europe as products of the art market. “
In 1970, a group of Cameroonian merchants was detained by the Nigerian police and a cache of Igbo artifacts was seized. Nigeria made the trade in stolen artifacts illegal in 1953 with the passage of its Antiquities Ordinance Law.
The Nigerian Museum and Monuments Commission and the Nigerian National Museum in Lagos did not respond to requests for comment on the Christie’s sale.
“It is about questioning the persistence of the colonial heritage in the art world. If it’s not said as forcefully as possible, then the problem just gets in the way, “said Mr. Okeke-Agulu.” Black Lives Matter has shown that when enough pressure is applied, people are forced to reconsider long-standing positions. “
Théophile Larcher contributed reports.
