Isabella: Oldman's Reveal of Benin Bronzes



Today, I had much better luck going through the archival material in the Gordon boxes as I focused on his correspondences with W.O. Oldman. By going through their correspondences between 1908-1913, I was able to track the Penn Museum's purchase of a +2,000 collection of African objects as well as a separate purchase of the Benin Collection.


The most important piece of information that I found today was that the Benin collection stems from the Benin Expedition of 1897. In a letter to G.B. Gordon, Oldman writes, "“The important pieces such as the Bronze Head, plaque, masks, Aegis armlet, Dagger, Key, Vulture staff, small rattle staff and Execution Sword. Were all brought over by several officers of the British Primitive Expedition under Admiral Rawson in February 1897. They were sold by Auction in London end of 1897. And most were bought by Welster (a member of these pieces are illustrated in his Catalogues). He sold a lot to a private collector and there I was able to purchase a collection and the other pieces I bought separately from different sources.”


In this small section, Oldman reveals that the Penn Museum's Benin materials were taken during the British Benin Expedition of 1897. Under Admiral Rawson, British troops destroyed Benin city and in turn, the West African Kingdom of Benin. Most of the country's art was looted and later sold by the British Admiralty at a London auction in May 1897 to pay for the expedition. The Penn Museum's Benin Collections can be directly traced to this London auction and the catastrophic and inhumane 1897 expedition. This letter shows the clear link between the Penn Museum and imperialistic violence. The complicity to the expedition and to the destruction of Benin cannot be denied and I am interested to hear Dr. Zuberi's thoughts.


In the future, I am planning on learning more about the acquirement of the Mackenzie Congo Collection (collected by Lt. Mackenzie and his wife) and M. Henri Pareyn, a Belgian African art collector who sold through Oldman. There are many threads to pull on in the Gordon-Oldman files and I'm interested in seeing where they'll take me.

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