Still, the passion that has always accompanied these objects underlines the value of the platform itself. Felicity Bodenstein, Digital Benin’s lead investigator on provenance, hopes the success of the platform can be replicated. ‘We want this to be a prototype,’ she tells me. ‘A model that might work for other communities of researchers to do something similar.’
Leopard (1550–1680), Edo artist. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Barnaby Phillips is the author of Loot: Britain and the Benin Bronzes (Oneworld).
