Appeal to stop Benin mask sale launched

The appeal made by Kayode Ogundamisi on http://www.jaguda.com/2010/12/22/stop-the-sale-of-stolen-16th-century-benin-mask/, informs that the mask was stolen from Benin City, Edo State during the British invasion of the region in 1897. Since then it has been in the custody of the family of   Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Lionel Galway who was a British commissioner in colonial Nigeria, and recently resurfaced. […]

The appeal made by Kayode Ogundamisi on http://www.jaguda.com/2010/12/22/stop-the-sale-of-stolen-16th-century-benin-mask/, informs that the mask was stolen from Benin City, Edo State during the British invasion of the region in 1897. Since then it has been in the custody of the family of   Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Lionel Galway who was a British commissioner in colonial Nigeria, and recently resurfaced.

“His family is now putting the stolen Ivory for sale for £5 Million at Sotheby’s in London.”

According to Ogundamisi, “for several years, the British claimed they do not know about the mask only for the mask to resurface in the family home of Henry Galway and rather than get the mask back they are putting it up for sale.”

Giving an insight into Galway, Ogundamisi quoted Wikipedia as stating that, “The ‘Gallwey Treaty’, although it was never signed, became the legal basis for British invasion, occupation and looting, culminating in the savage Benin Expedition of 1897, which destroyed the Kingdom of Benin. Galway was often mentioned in dispatches during this time, and was rewarded with the Distinguished Service Order (1896), appointment as Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (1899) and promotion to major (1897).”

The site http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/benin_mask/ further informs that, “This petition page has been set up in an effort to put a stop to the auction of a 16th century Benin mask stolen during the invasion of the Benin people by the British. It recently resurfaced after going missing for many years and is being put up for sale (according to www.artdaily.org) along with five other Benin objects by the “descendants of Lieutenant Colonel Sir Henry Lionel Gallwey (in 1913 he changed his name to Galway) who was appointed Deputy Commissioner and Vice-Consul in the newly established Oil Rivers Protectorate (later the Niger Coast Protectorate) in 1891. He remained in Nigeria until 1902 and participated in the British Government’s “Punitive Expedition” of 1897 against Benin City. The faces of the five known pendant masks have been interpreted widely by scholars of Benin art as that of Idia, the first Queen Mother of Benin.”

“Sotheby’s plans to auction this precious mask and other Benin objects on  February 17, 2011; we plan to put a stop to the sale and get the items returned to the Benin people in Nigeria,” Ogundamisi says.

A facebook page which believes that ‘if western countries were able to recover their artifacts stolen by the Nazis during World War II – we can recover ours’ has been set up in this respect.