Bey, Heinrich (c. 1846-1906)
Titles
Mr.
Description
Hamburg merchant and trader, owner of the export and import company H. Bey & Co., as well as the subsidiary Bey & Zimmer. Both had branches in West Africa (Lagos, Sapelea, Warri) from where ‘colonial goods’ and commodities (e.g. palm kernels) were transported to Hamburg. The company was one of four important ‘principal trading firms on the Benin River’, and played a central role in importing... Read more
Hamburg merchant and trader, owner of the export and import company H. Bey & Co., as well as the subsidiary Bey & Zimmer. Both had branches in West Africa (Lagos, Sapelea, Warri) from where ‘colonial goods’ and commodities (e.g. palm kernels) were transported to Hamburg. The company was one of four important ‘principal trading firms on the Benin River’, and played a central role in importing works of art from the Kingdom of Benin to Europe. Bey & Co. undersigned the petition written in 1896 to the British Vice-Consul of the Benin River District demanding action against Ọba Ovonramwẹ because he had stopped all trade in that area (Dau, 2022 Hans, Lidchi, Schmidt, 2021).
Bey was in contact with Johannes Dietrich Eduard Schmeltz (Rijks Ethnographisch Museum, Leiden) and Felix Ritter von Luschan (Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin) in 1898 but only sold objects from Benin City directly to von Luschan. Some of these objects when considered as ‘duplicates’ were later resold by von Luschan to Schmeltz. He also sold an object in 1903 to the MARKK, Hamburg.
After Bey’s death, his widow consigned two pieces from her late husband’s estate in 1928 that are now part of the MARKK’s collection.
Other merchants and traders are known for having worked for Bey & Co. selling objects from the Kingdom of Benin, such as Bernhard Adolf Heemke, Friedrich Erdmann, Fritz Lüthge, S. Strumpf, and Hinzpeter.
Places of contact
Hamburg, DEEdo designations
English designations
Categories
Institutions
Provenance names
173 objects
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