{"id":632935,"date":"2026-09-22T23:50:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T23:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/632935\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T23:50:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T23:50:12","slug":"met-museum-brokers-return-of-three-artworks-to-nigeria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/632935\/","title":{"rendered":"Met Museum Brokers Return of Three Artworks to Nigeria"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                <a class=\"gh-article-tag\" href=\"https:\/\/hyperallergic.com\/tag\/news\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">News<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"gh-article-excerpt is-body\">Collector Ceil Pulitzer provided detailed provenance of the works, but the museum preferred another route.<\/p>\n<p>                            <a href=\"https:\/\/hyperallergic.com\/author\/rhea-nayyar\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n                                <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"author-profile-image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1790121010_97_rhea-nayyar-d-blank-r-g-s-500.jpg\" alt=\"Rhea Nayyar\"\/><br \/>\n                            <\/a><\/p>\n<p>        <img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Horse-head_Yoruba-1.jpg\" alt=\"Met Museum Brokers Return of Three Artworks to Nigeria\"\/><br \/>\n            Yoruba artist (Yoruba peoples), &#8220;Horse head&#8221; (12th\u201315th century) (all images courtesy The Met)<\/p>\n<p>The Metropolitan Museum of Art has brokered the return of three sculptures to Nigeria through a long-term loan agreement for their display in New York. The works will be on view in the Rockefeller Wing&#8217;s Arts of Africa galleries later this month and made available for further scholarship. <\/p>\n<p>Collector Ceil Pulitzer sought to gift one copper figure and two terracotta busts from her collection to The Met last year. A painter from Arkansas, she married into the family behind the Pulitzer Prizes and Pulitzer Publishing Company in 1970, and soon began collecting African art. Per museum director and CEO Max Hollein&#8217;s interview with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/09\/21\/arts\/design\/nigeria-art-collector-ceil-pultizer-metropolitan-museum-hollein.html?ref=hyperallergic.com\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New York Times<\/a>, Pulitzer provided detailed provenance for the three pieces she acquired between 2015 and 2018, but it still fell short of the museum&#8217;s prerequisites for accepting the gift. <\/p>\n<p>Spanning the 12th through 18th centuries, the three pieces supplement The Met&#8217;s display of Nigerian art as pinnacle examples of Ife and Benin artistic traditions. Dated around the 18th century, the Edo copper figure representing an iy\u1ecd\u0301b\u00e0 (queen mother) from the Kingdom of Benin embodies what the museum describes as a rare, standalone depiction of a woman in the kingdom&#8217;s courtly tradition. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Queen-Mother_Edo.jpg\" class=\"kg-image\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"2000\" height=\"2667\"  \/>\u00ccg\u00f9n \u1eb8\u0301r\u1ecd\u0300nww\u1ecd\u0300n artists (brass-casting guild), \u201cIy\u1ecd\u0301b\u00e0 (queen mother) figure\u201d (c. 18th century)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMost queen mother castings featured as the focal point of larger ensembles within an \u00f9rh\u1ecd\u0300t\u1ecd\u0300 (altar tableau),\u201d the museum explained in a press release concerning the gift. \u201cThe unique nature of this figure may indicate that it commemorated an especially prominent iy\u1ecd\u0301b\u00e0 who held the title sometime between the late 17th and 18th centuries.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>    Create a free account, or sign in to continue reading.<\/p>\n<p>Registered readers of Hyperallergic get access to a limited number of free articles every month, and the Hyperallergic Daily newsletter.<\/p>\n<p>      <a class=\"gh-btn\" data-portal=\"signup\" style=\"color:#00AEEE\">Subscribe now<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Already have an account? <a data-portal=\"signin\">Sign in<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"News Collector Ceil Pulitzer provided detailed provenance of the works, but the museum preferred another route. Yoruba artist&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-632935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}