82 the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, despite internal conflicts, Benin remained an important trading partner for European countries, among them Holland, Britain, and France. With the rise of European imperialism in the nineteenth century, Benin’s fortunes changed. In 1892, Oba Ovonramwen (ruled 1888–97) entered into a treaty with Great Britain, placing the kingdom under British jurisdiction. Five years later, in February of 1897, after Benin forces had killed members of a British delegation en route to Benin City, the British dispatched the socalled Punitive Expedition to the capital. The expeditionary force defeated Ovonramwen’s army and seized more than 4,000 works from the royal palace. As reward for their services, several high-ranking members of the expedition retained pieces of their choice, while the Admiralty brought others to Great Britain and put them up for sale. Their beauty and technical sophistication caused a sensation when they came on the market, and competition among collectors, dealers, and museum professionals, who wanted to acquire them for their institutions, was fierce. Eventually the objects were sold and over the last century entered collections around the world, with the largest holdings in Great Britain, Germany, Austria, and the United States. PITT-RIVERS AND THE ART OF BENIN This brief essay presents several exquisite works in the Robert Owen Lehman Collection, most of which became available right after the Punitive Expedition, and recounts their histories. Fourteen were once part of the private Pitt-Rivers Museum in Farnham, Dorset, which closed its doors in the 1960s. The life of its founder, Lieutenant General Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt- Rivers7 (1827–1900), and his collections have been documented in an excellent website titled “Rethinking Pitt-Rivers: Analysing the Activities of a Nineteenth-Century Collector” (http://web.prm.ox. ac.uk/rpr/) created and maintained by the staff of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. Pitt- Rivers was a scholar of anthropology and archaeology and, early on, formed a massive collection of artifacts, systematically documenting the technological development of mankind. In 1884, FIG. 5: Royal double gong. Edo peoples, Benin kingdom, Nigeria. 17th century. Copper alloy. H: 28.6 cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Robert Owen Lehman Collection. Photo courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. FIG. 6: Royal Double Gong (fig. 5). Watercolor by George Frederick Waldo Johnson. From Augustus Henry Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers, General Fox-Pitt- Rivers: Catalogues of His Collections, 1882–1899, vol. 5, p. 1641. Cambridge University Library, Department of Manuscripts and University Archives, MS Add.9455.
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