Met Museum Brokers Return of Three Artworks to Nigeria Through Long-Term Loan Agreement
NEW YORK — The Metropolitan Museum of Art has facilitated the transfer of ownership of three centuries-old sculptures to Nigeria while securing a 25-year loan that will keep the works on display in New York, in an arrangement museum leaders are describing as a new model for handling contested cultural heritage. The three pieces, a 14th-century brass Ife Head, a 16th-century Edo terracotta commemorative portrait and an 18th-century Edo copper alloy figure representing a queen mother, were donated by collector Ceil Pulitzer, who acquired them between 2015 and 2018. Pulitzer, a painter from Arkansas who married into the family behind the Pulitzer Prizes in 1970, provided detailed provenance for the works, but it fell short of the museum's prerequisites for accepting them into its permanent collection. Instead of returning the works outright or rejecting the gift, the Met worked with Pulitzer and the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM) to transfer ownership to...