Ẹyo Otọ
Ẹyo Otọ is a learning space about the objects and their Edo designations. Listen, view and read about their use, production and function.
Catalogue
Search, filter and explore data, images and linked research for 5,285 objects from 137 institutions in twenty countries.
Institutions
View objects listed in the 137 institutions in twenty countries currently holding historical Benin objects in their collections.
Provenance
Study the roles, biographies and object relations of provenance names found in the information provided by 137 institutions.
Map
Explore a present day map of Edo South (ancient Benin Kingdom) and Benin City. See the current location of the historical objects worldwide.
Oral History
Listen to oral traditions Benin people share, to transmit and preserve knowledge and cultural traditions from one generation to another.
Itan Edo
Itan Edo is the story of Benin Kingdom. Read about the cultural and historical trajectories related to kings, queens, guilds and more.
Archival Documents
Access the digitised archival documents that relate to the historic Benin objects, their provenance stories and the wider history of Benin Kingdom.
Archival Institutions
Explore a source guide of institutions that hold archival material related to the Benin Kingdom, its history and the objects shown on the platform.
Digital Research Tools
Study data on the platform with digital research tools and visualisations.
About the project
Dr. Felicity Bodenstein provides general guidance and oversight as well as input and insight on provenance research and publications locating archival records. She played a role in the preparatory work in defining the guiding parameters on the basis of which collections/objects are included in the database. In particular, she oversees the development of the ‘Provenance’ space on the platform, working closely with Ermeline de la Croix, providing bibliographical references and archival resources for the identification and qualification of the provenance names. She reviews provenance roles and co-authors biographies of important figures. She provides relevant contacts for research and contributes her own research on the market history of the Benin pieces. She set up the initial Zotero bibliography that the team builds on.
Biography
Dr. Felicity Bodenstein is an art historian working in Paris, specialized in the history of archaeological and ethnographic collections and the social, economic, and cultural processes involved in their creation, classification, interpretation, display, and reception during the 19th and 20th century. After completing a Ph.D. on the history of the collections of the department of coins and medals at the National Library in Paris in the 19th century, she now works on questions of representation in the display of contested, translocated objects. Her on-going research since 2015 is dedicated to understanding the global destiny of the Benin pieces looted in 1897 by British Naval forces in present-day Nigeria and considers the value transformations and narratives that have accompanied their initial looting and the successive displacements through the market and through collections. She is also interested in the long history of the restitution debates that they are currently part of. Her research was supported by post-doctoral fellowships from the Max Planck Institut at the Kunsthistoriches Institut in Florence, by the musée du quai Branly–Jacques Chirac in Paris and by the Technische Univeristät in Berlin; where she worked for two years in the project translocations, piloted by Professor Bénédicte Savoy. Since 2019, she is a lecturer in the history of museums and heritage studies at Sorbonne Université, Paris.︎
Selected publications
2020. Guest editor of “Africa: Trade, Traffic, Collections,” Journal for Art Market Studies 4 (1), 14 October. https://fokum-jams.org/index.php/jams/article/view/119 (https://fokum-jams.org/index.php/jams/article/view/119)
2020. “Alles von Wert in Besitz genommen,” Süddetusche Zeitung (19 February): 10.
2020. “Une typologie des prises de butin à Benin City en février 1897,” Monde(s) 17 (1): 57-77.
2019. “Matières nobles. Les collections royales de Benin City au prisme des relations hiérarchiques,” in Valeurs et matérialité. Approches anthropologiques. Paris: Rue d’Ulm, p. 45-60.
2019. “Wohin gehört die Königinmutter Idia?,” Bauwelt 8: 30-31.
2019. “Cinq masques de l’Iyoba Idia du royaume de Bénin: vies sociales et trajectoire d’un objet multiple,” Perspective. La Revue de l’INHA 2: 227-238.
2018. “Le retour des objets pillés pendant la période coloniale, un enjeu de taille au Nigeria,” The Conversation (30 December). https://theconversation.com/le-retour-des-objets-pilles-pendant-la-periode-coloniale-un-enjeu-de-taille-au-nigeria-107242?fbclid=IwAR13WdgIBettX1gJTt_DLWH2sqKmWLiCtUnv4AsXGBJb0ueQt6Gbapv3gbQ (https://theconversation.com/le-retour-des-objets-pilles-pendant-la-periode-coloniale-un-enjeu-de-taille-au-nigeria-107242?fbclid=IwAR13WdgIBettX1gJTt_DLWH2sqKmWLiCtUnv4AsXGBJb0ueQt6Gbapv3gbQ )
2018. “Rawson and Moor: The Capture of Benin City (1897),” Translocations. Anthologie: Eine Sammlung kommentierter Quellentexte zu Kulturgutverlagerungen seit der Antike (19 October). https://translanth.hypotheses.org/ueber/rawson-moor (https://translanth.hypotheses.org/ueber/rawson-moor)
2018. “Weltkunst unter Verdacht. Raubkunst, ihre Geschichte und Erinnerungskultur in deutschen Sammlungen,” with Christine Howald, in Deutschland Postkolonial, edited by Joachim Zeller and Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst. Berlin: Metropol-Verlag, pp. 25-43.
2018. “Notes for a Long-Term Approach to the Price History of Brass and Ivory Objects taken from Benin City in 1897,” in Acquiring Cultures: World Art on Western Markets, edited by Christine Howald, Bénédicte Savoy and Charlotte Guichard. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, pp. 276-288.