nigerianostalgia: The Benin Expedition of 1897 was a punitive expedition by a United Kingdom force o
nigerianostalgia: The Benin Expedition of 1897 was a punitive expedition by a United Kingdom force of 1,200 under Admiral Sir Harry Rawson in response to the defeat of a previous British-led invasion force under Acting Consul General James Philips (which had left all but two men dead).[1] Rawson’s troops captured, burned, and looted Benin City, bringing to an end the west African Kingdom of Benin. As a result much of the country’s art, including the Benin Bronzes, was either destroyed, looted or dispersed.September 9th, 1897, Omo n’Oba Ovoramwen is taken out of Benin by a NCPF: unit of sixty men commanded by Captains Carter and Henniker to Gele-Gele port, and transferred on to a Protectorate yacht on the final journey (exile) to Calabar.Phillips’s objectives, as stated in a letter dated the 16 November 1896) were finally achieved. The city had been ‘visited’ (invaded and captured), the ‘obstruction’ (Omo n’Oba Ovenramwen) had been removed and the `ivory’ (treasuries of Benin kingdom: Artworks, sacred and religious items, mnemonics and visual history, including personal effects) in his Palace stolen.Some of the ivory was shipped to England, and a fraction of it finally auctioned in Paris to pay for the ‘visit’. A reference book has it that a large collection of art from Benin is brought to France; these works influence the artistic and formal concerns of modern artists, especially Pablo Picasso and the Cubist. Source: British museum -- source link