Recently, the Worcester Art Museum and the Italian government came to an agreement regarding two artifacts that were allegedly stolen from Italy in the 1950s. 

According to a January 30 release by the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, the agreement resulted in the transfer of ownership of the antiquities— a black amphora (storage jar) and a kylix (drinking cup)— back to Italy.

However, the Worcester Art Museum will keep the items as loans for another four to eight years, after which the artifacts will be returned to Italy and replaced with a loan of other artifacts.

This loan exchange program is the first of its kind for the Worcester Art Museum.

However, the agreement between the Worcester Art Museum and the Italian government speaks to a more complex dilemma: world-famous museums displaying stolen art.

Many pieces of art have been illegally procured and showcased in museums all over the world. A more well-known example of this is the Benin Bronzes, a collection of intricate sculptures that now sit in the British Museum in London, England.

The Benin Bronzes come from the historic Kingdom of Benin and were used in rituals to honor the ancestors and celebrate a new king’s ascension. They are, without a doubt, of great cultural significance to the people of Benin.

Yet, the Benin Bronzes reside almost three thousand miles away from their original home.

The British Museum is infamous for having stolen items in its collection. These artifacts range from Asante gold from present-day Ghana, Moai from Easter Island, sculptures from the Parthenon in Greece, a Maqdala collection from Ethiopia, and even human remains.

While the British Museum’s website claims that it is committed to curating its human remains exhibits with “care, respect, and dignity,” the very presence of human remains negates this assertion.

The human remains and Benin Bronzes are not simply artifacts to be curated but are people and pieces of culture that do not belong in shoeboxes in storage rooms, as the British Museum does.

The acquisition of such items is an example of the present-day consequences of colonialism. Many of these items were obtained during colonial expeditions and brought back to be displayed without the consent of the nations of origin.

It is not just the British Museum that has a large collection of Benin Bronzes, but up until 2022, the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington D.C. had a collection of twenty-nine Benin Bronzes, which they have since returned.

The difference, however, between the British Museum and the Smithsonian is that the former refuses to return its collection of Benin Bronzes. This refusal comes as a part of the rhetoric behind not returning stolen artifacts. This narrative ranges from the bigoted idea that Western museums are more capable of caring for such artifacts, to varying museums viewing themselves as mediums of knowledge, to the presence of ironclad legislation.

In the case of Britain, the latter applies. The British parliament would have to overturn the British Museum Act of 1963, which limits the ability of museums to alter their collections if they truly wanted to return the Benin Bronzes.

Or, maybe, the British government simply lacks the will to try and remedy this issue.

Doing so would be an admission of wrongdoing.

Another argument critics of returning stolen objects have, is that if the artifacts were to be returned to their countries of origin, museums would be left bare.

This argument is ironic, as it suggests that stolen art makes up a majority of museum collections. 

This is probably true, given that around 1,000 pieces of art from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, stolen during times of conflict, are now being returned to Cambodia, Thailand, Egypt, and Italy.  

The loan program the Worcester Art Museum has with the Italian government; however, is an interesting possibility to solve this issue. The ownership of historic artifacts should belong to their country of origin, yet the loan program allows the art to be enjoyed by many.

While there is still a complex process of reparations that needs to be conducted, the Worcester Art Museum returning the looted pieces is a step in remedying the nuanced issue of stolen art.