Restitution, wrangling and renewal in Benin

In November 1892, after two years of skirmishes between French colonialist troops and the African kingdom of Danxomè (also known as Dahomey), several hundred soldiers led by the French-Senegalese general Alfred-Amédée Dodds marched into its fabled capital, today the city of Abomey in Benin. Its colossal fortified red-earth palaces were found semi-abandoned; the great King Béhanzin, said to have descended from the coupling of a leopard and a Tado princess, had fled with his court.

The soldiers, disappointed not to find any of the kingdom’s legendary treasure, raised a French flag and drank Béhanzin’s gin. Some hours later, they started digging in one of the palaces. A cache of royal objects was revealed: sceptres, statues and ornately sculpted doors. 

General Dodds laid claim to the best of it, including a sacred effigy of Béhanzin that depicted him as half-man, half-shark; he later gifted many of the pieces to the Musée d’Ethnographie du Trocadero in Paris (they were eventually moved to the Musée du Quai Branly). For more than a century, the relics of Danxomè inspired thousands of Europeans, among them Pablo Picasso, while generations of Beninese felt robbed not just of their antiquities but also the voices of their ancestors.

So when, in 2021, after years of repeated requests, the 26 objects were finally sent back to the country’s economic capital, Cotonou, the Beninese rejoiced. Thousands gathered to greet their arrival. The royal treasures were shown in the presidential palace as part of a world-class exhibition, Art of Benin from Yesterday and Today, which attracted more than 200,000 visitors in three months. A contemporary section featured more than 100 works by 34 Beninese artists, such as Romuald Hazoumè and Emo de Medeiros. The exhibition was so successful that the government ministries staged it a second time. The contemporary artworks were sent on a world tour, and are currently in Paris at the Conciergerie until 5 January. 

“Rich, poor, young, old, everyone came. More than once,” says Marie-Cécile Zinsou, a French-Beninese art patron who was among those advocating for the treasure’s return (these objects are not to be confused with the celebrated Benin Bronzes, some of which have been returned to Nigeria). “It was really a turning point in the cultural history of Benin.” This year, Dahomey, a documentary about the restitution by the French-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop that elucidates the profound impact on Benin’s national identity and its youth, has been selected as Senegal’s entry in the 2025 Academy Awards.

French artist Louis Barthélemy and I have travelled to Benin – his second visit, my first – to witness the positive change being sparked by President Talon’s ambitious development plan, which has culture and heritage at its core. “It is at the end of the old rope that the new one is best woven,” he said recently, citing an old African proverb. 

Already, much new rope has been added. We stay at the just-opened Sofitel in Cotonou, located on an endless stretch of white-sand beaches lined with newly planted palm trees. The resort buzzes with guests networking within its towering lobby filled with contemporary Beninese art. Just a short walk from the hotel, we join local families in a vast square to crane our necks at a 98ft statue of Queen Tassi Hangbe, said to be the first of Danxomè’s famous Amazons, the all-female military regiment that inspired The Woman King, which starred Viola Davis. Not far from the statue is a massive construction site that will soon be Le Quartier Culturel et Créatif, a cultural neighbourhood designed by Côte d’Ivoire-based architects Koffi & Diabaté. It will be home to a concert arena, galleries, a crafts village and spaces for artists’ residencies, along with Cotonou’s new Museum of Contemporary Art

“I hate politics, but what President Talon has accomplished in the past few years is incredible,” says the artist Romuald Hazoumè, sitting at a table on the terrace of his family home in Cotonou. “Do you know what a few people here are saying about the restitution?” Hazoumè looks at me expectantly. “They are saying that in the end it wasn’t the French government or the Beninese people that made it happen. They say it was the objects themselves that decided to come back, because they knew better than anyone who could take care of them.”

Hazoumè practises vodun. Meaning “spirit” in the Fon language, vodun is one of the world’s oldest religions, rooted in ancestor worship and the spiritual animation of all things, from trees to animals and sacred objects. Hazoumè notes that while a reported 50 per cent of the country’s 14 million citizens are Christian, “100 per cent still believe in vodun”. To valorise this rich spiritual culture, Talon is also building the International Vodun Museum in Porto-Novo, Benin’s capital, where Hazoumè keeps a second home. It is already rising in the city’s centre, a dramatic conical structure inspired by the fortresses of Benin’s Somba people.

Several cities, including Porto-Novo, claim to be the capital of vodun, but it’s in Ouidah that Vodun Days, a festival of vodun rituals inaugurated in the 1990s, takes place every January. The small city has a dark history as one of Africa’s most prolific slave ports, first administered by the Portuguese before being taken over in 1727 by the Kingdom of Danxomè. Some estimate that millions of Africans departed from Ouidah for the Americas, most often to Brazil and the Caribbean. It too will soon be home to an ambitious cultural landmark, the International Museum of Memory and Slavery, slated to open next year in a renovated 18th-century Portuguese fort where countless Africans were held captive before being shipped across the Atlantic. 

The Ouidah of today tells a different story, marked by optimism and creative dynamism. Our first stop is Couleur Indigo, a grassroots brand whose mission is to revive the tradition of indigo dyeing. Nadia Adanle, its founder, leads us up to a whitewashed rooftop terrace on which much of the dyeing and production takes place. In a far corner stand half a dozen large plastic barrels containing leaves of the indigofera plant, fermenting in a soak; in the expanse between, twisted and knotted parcels of dark blue fabric are drying in the sun. On a work table, a bolt of cotton is laid out on to which Adanle has drawn a pattern based on one of the restituted thrones. 

Not far away is the Zinsou Foundation, which has a contemporary art museum inside the Villa Ajavon, a faded but elegant Afro-Brazilian-style building on a dusty, lively street lined with shops and galleries. Along with dozens of exhibition rooms, the foundation holds a café, a boutique and a leafy courtyard garden. Founder Marie-Cécile Zinsou arrives, wearing a brightly patterned wax-fabric top and skirt. She opened the first Zinsou Foundation in Cotonou in 2005. Eight years later she moved it here, rebranding the Cotonou space as Le Lab, with a cinema, café and exhibition space.

Zinsou, who lives between Paris and Benin and whose father’s family can trace its roots back to 1860 in Ouidah (her father was Benin’s prime minister in 2015-16), has spent much of the past five years fighting for the restitution of the royal treasure. She is currently wrangling the return of a 27th object, a throne, from Finland. “The optimism and energy here is not about the west returning the objects,” she says. “That is a moral obligation. It’s about how Benin and its government and people are using this opportunity and moment to say to the world, ‘Look at who we are.’”

To reach Abomey, the original capital of Danxomè, from Cotonou takes about three hours. Despite the destruction wrought during the Franco-Dahomean wars, the sprawling 120-acre complex of 10 discrete royal palaces is still the centre of this ancient Unesco world heritage site. The palaces are being renovated, funded in part by Japan. Preserving Abomey’s royal complex is significant both politically and culturally, as it’s one of few in west Africa that weren’t ravaged in the colonial wars. The Royal Palace of the Oba of Benin was almost entirely destroyed in 1897, and the English razed the residence of the Ashanti king at Kumasi in 1874.

Abomey is small, lush and slow-paced, with more motorcycles than cars. The palace walls are of red-earth cob, their surfaces embedded with striking bas-reliefs that illustrate historic battles or the symbols of the different kings. Inside, the royal complexes are a series of courtyards of increasing prestige; in several of them we found textile workshops. The kingdom was, and still is, a centre of art and craft, from appliqué designers to bronze artisans and weavers.

Last January, on an exploratory trip to Benin, Barthélemy – whose projects involve collaborating with textile artisans who are often custodians of a dying craft – met Yêmadje Alexis, a member of Abomey’s royal collective of appliqué artisans. The two agreed to work together on a large-scale project: four cotton panels the size of the royal doors, appliquéd with a historical narrative of Danxomè and the restitution as imagined by Barthélemy. On this visit, Alexis organises for Barthélemy to be introduced to the rest of the collective.

What we assume will be a casual meeting becomes a journey in time, a door to the ancient kingdom of Danxomè. Alexis leads us through the grand arched entrance to the official workshops and then through a courtyard to a small, one-roomed building. Inside, a dozen male artisans dressed in traditional costume are waiting for us, the walls behind them hung with appliquéd tapestries, but present unexpectedly is the chief of the collective, wearing a royal cap and carrying a sceptre. 

Barthélemy collects himself and, after formal introductions, presents his project to the group. The encounter takes several hours over two days, and culminates in a vodun ceremony in a shrine filled with dozens of intricate altar staffs, bird bones and feathers. “I had expected to dive right into technical details,” says Barthélemy later, “but instead was immersed in a world where craft still holds a sacred power.”

From Abomey we drive for four hours along a road still under construction to Benin’s capital, Porto-Novo, for our final meeting: with King Migan XIV. While there are currently several non-sovereign monarchs in Benin – in the 17th century, the descendants of the mythical princess and the leopard founded different kingdoms, including Danxomé, Allada and Porto-Novo – they’re regarded by some as more symbolic than active. But Migan is a respected leader among his constituents, conspicuously engaged in preserving local history and local politics. 

The 70-year-old, wearing an emerald-green formal costume, is waiting in his faded, two-storey royal complex. “You’re late,” he admonishes us. When we blame the construction he responds: “You know we are building that for you, the tourists.” He leads us up to his throne room, its walls lined with old photos. Seated, he explains that historically, the kingdom of Porto-Novo had been independent from that of Danxomè, sometimes even its enemy; its own sacred objects had not been taken during colonial rule. To prove it he fetches a dusty package and unpacks it carefully to reveal an ancient sword – one, he confides, that cut off quite a few heads in its day. 

Through a window, we can see the half-finished National Assembly, designed by the Burkinabé-German architect Francis Kéré. I ask the King what he thinks of it. “I am so pleased with Francis and his design, which is like a great tree,” he says. It’s especially meaningful, he explains, because the land on which the new National Assembly is rising was once a sacred forest protected by his ancestors, then taken and built upon by the French. Now his people don’t just have Danxomè’s treasure returned, he says, they also have their spiritual roots back. “It gives me much hope.”  

Gisela Williams and Louis Barthélemy were guests of Sofitel Cotonou Marina Hotel & Spa (from about £220, sofitel.accor.com)