J.S. Marcus, Zurich’s Museum Rietberg transfers 11 Benin Bronzes to Nigerian government, The Art Newspaper, 20 March 2026
Nine of the objects will stay in Switzerland despite the change of ownership
The Rietberg Museum in Zurich, which dates to the early 1950s, owes its origins to a collection largely amassed in the 1920s and 30s by German-Swiss banker Eduard von der Heydt, who regarded his objects as art rather than anthropological specimens or colonial souvenirs. Nevertheless, among his holdings were pieces originating in the Kingdom of Benin, now in present-day Nigeria, whose remarkable sculptural heritage was looted and then dispersed after its capital, Benin City, was raided by British forces in 1897.