I'm taking my Benin Bronzes back, so there!

You've heard the old saw before. There are variants, but it's something along the lines of the first generation works in the factory, so the second generation can be doctors, so the third generation can be artists. Or something like that. 

So I give you Robert "Robin" Lehman, Junior.

Admittedly, when I'm talking about Robin Lehman, I'm off by a generation. It was his great-grandfather who founded Lehman Brothers, the late (and maybe lamented by some folks) investment banking firm that gulped its last in 2008. And Robin was the first gen not to run Lehman Bros, which had been head by his grandfather and father. Those gents, while running the family biz, had also been avid art collectors. So Robin clearly inherited the art jones, as well as the fortune that enabled him to collect art, make art (e.g., glass paperweights in the likenesses of great composers), and make documentary films. It's the art collecting, and the art donating, and the art un-donating that Robin Lehman's been in the recent news for. 

While the generation rise (fall?) from money makers to art makers - or art collectors - may be a bit off from the original proverb, it still holds that the further down in the family tree, and the more money shaking off that tree, the more likely you are going to get to do whatever you damned want without having to worry about paying the rent. (Note: Robin Lehman's four children are either artists themselves, or art-adjacent: as far as I can tell, two are artists, one runs an art gallery, and one runs Robin Lehman's glass gallery, where I guess he sells those famous composer paperweights. Of course I'm a tad bit jelly? Who wouldnt be?)

Anyway, Robin Lehman was in the news in late April because of a kertuffle over some art work - the Benin Bronzes, artifacts from what is now Nigeria - which he pledged to Boston's Museum of Fine Art (MFA) a decade ago. 

...and they have been displayed ever since in a dedicated gallery just off the museum’s central rotunda. But the provenance of the work has always been a problem: It’s well known that many of the sculptures were plundered during a raid of the West African Kingdom of Benin by British troops in 1897. (Source: The Boston Globe) 

Oops.

None of this is to say that Robin Lehman had anything to do with the plundering. He acquired the bronzes legitimately, presumably back in the day when the provenance of a work of art didn't worry about whether the art had been legitimately acquired to begin with. Museums and private collections are chocked full of antiquities that were spoils that went to the victors. And in recent decades, there have been moves - some successful, others dragging on - to return the works to their ur sources. Perhaps the most famous looted art pieces are the Elgin Marbles, stripped from the Parthenon in Athens in the early 19th century, and on display in the British Museum now for over 200 years. Who rightly owns them? Greece or England?

More recent controversies are over art stolen from European Jews in the 1930's and 1940's. (Last year, an Egon Schiele portrait which had been legitimately purchased - at the time, and so he thought - by Robin Lehman's father, was awarded to the heirs of the German Jewish family it had been stolen from.)

Anyway, the MFA has been upfront from the jump where the bronzes (some 30 artifacts) came from:

To exhibit the works the museum created a gallery that included information about the looting and invited the kingdom’s royal leader, the oba, to the opening. (Source: NY Times)

Well, obas come and obas go, and the new oba in town wanted the bronzes to be repatriated. So the MFA, which considers itself a leader when it comes to figuring out the right thing to do with its looted treasures (of which the MFA has plenty), entered into discussion with Lehman and representatives of the new oba. 

Those discussions ended this week with an announcement by the museum that almost all of the items would be going back to Lehman.

The gallery is now closed. The five bronzes where ownership had been transfered to the MFA are on exhibit in the museum's regular collection, and they're still working to finding "a resolution regarding the ownership and display." The warrior on horseback, shown above, was one that's been reclaimed by Lehman. 

Again, Lehman purchased the bronzes legitimately. And god knows there may be tax implications with respect to this donation. But it's all plenty messy.

Reflecting on efforts by the three parties — the Kingdom of Benin, the Museum of Fine Arts and Lehman — to find a mutual resolution regarding the bronzes, [MFA Director Matthew] Teitelbaum said in an interview, “We were constantly trying to align the various interests to achieve an outcome that honored history as well as the museum’s ability to display the works.”

“This was not the outcome anyone wanted,” he said.

Sadly, while I'm sure he has his reasons - financial and other - for rescinding the original donation (and I'm not saying that donation wasn't generous and civic-minded) - the story sure makes it look that Robin Lehman (a rich man with a boy's name) didn't just poutily pick up his marbles...errr, bronzes...and go home. 

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Today is my beloved sister Trish's birthday. Happy Birthday, Po. If I had a Benin Bronze, I'd give it to you - as long as it was okay with the oba.