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Looting history

BBC History Magazine

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January 2022

DAVID OLUSOGA praises a stark exploration of the bloodsoaked British raid that plundered the treasures of Benin

- DAVID OLUSOGA

Looting history

A sculpture of a horse and rider, in the British Museum. A new book examines the looting of the Benin Bronzes in 1897

Blood and Bronze by Paddy Docherty Hurst, 240 pages, £20

At no time since 1897, when the Benin Bronzes were looted from the royal palace of the Kingdom of Benin (in what's now Nigeria), have they been discussed as much as they are today.

In the 1890s, the debate focused on how it was that an African kingdom, dismissed and derided as barbarous and uncivilized by the politicians, press, and public of late-Victorian Britain, had been able to produce such exquisite works of art - objects of outstanding technical and aesthetic sophistication.

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