Dagger from Puputan Klungkung, looted during the Dutch colonial era, returned to Indonesia last year. Photo: NMVW
The return of art which should never have been here
26 September 2024
In a long-overdue reckoning with its colonial past, the Netherlands has started to return priceless artifacts that were looted from its former colonies Last week, the Dutch government returned 288 looted artefacts to its former colony Indonesia, under Dutch rule between 1800 and 1945.
These items "were wrongfully taken to the Netherlands during the colonial period” and "should never have been here,” the Dutch culture minister declared. This includes four Hindu-Buddhist statues taken from Java in the first half of the 19th century. Other objects include weapons, coins, jewellery, and textiles seized in 1906 after a war against local rulers in Bali.
This repatriation is the second of its kind. Last year, 478 cultural pieces were returned to Indonesia and Sri Lanka, another former Dutch colony. While this might seem like a lot, a report reveals there are potentially hundreds of looted religious and historical objects still in Dutch museums and private collections.
 | Julianne van Pelt This is a rare case of cultural objects taken during colonialism making their way back home. While several former European colonial powers have pledged to return looted artefacts, restitution efforts are slow due to a lack of clear guidelines and the time-consuming, often confrontational, case-by-case investigations. For instance, Germany agreed to transfer 1,100 Benin Bronzes to Nigeria but has delivered only 22 so far, partly due to concerns about public accessibility. In the UK, some plundered artefacts have been loaned to Ghana, rather than returned, because a 1963 law prohibits national museums from permanently removing objects from their collections, except in rare cases. |
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