'A question of justice' as France and Germany face up to colonial past

Some of Europe's biggest museums may have to do some soul-searching in the years ahead. 

France and Germany are funding a study that will explore how African artifacts ended up in their museums. Researchers are aiming to identify where exactly the items came from, and how the museums acquired them. 

Souleymane Bachir Diagne leads the Franco-German Research Fund on the Provenance of Cultural Objects from Sub-Saharan Africa – the council which will supervise the study. He believes people should understand how Europeans got hold of African artifacts. 

"The question of returning items to their country of origin is now crucial," Diagne tells CGTN Europe. "Museums should make it clear how certain items came to be there." 

The Central European University estimates that there are more than 400,000 African artifacts in museums across France, Germany, Belgium, Austria and the United Kingdom. 

The CEU says there have been calls to return around 30,000 of those items - less than 10 percent of the total. But that doesn't mean all the other items were handed over as gifts. It simply means the 'origin stories' aren't always clear. 

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Diagne says the research will help museums uncover those stories. 

"It's a question of justice for the African countries," he says. "But we also have to be fair to museums which acquired objects in a very regular way, because there is trade as well. There is transaction."

Some museums have accepted that times are changing. German officials have promised to hand over more than 1,000 so-called Benin bronzes to Nigeria. France has also returned 26 artworks stolen by French colonial forces in West Africa. 

The British Museum, and the Victoria & Albert Museum, have agreed to return crown jewels taken from Ghana's Asante kingdom in the late 19th Century. UK law does not allow the museums to return the jewels on a permanent basis, so they have issued them on loan.  

The Fowler Museum in Los Angeles also delivered several items to Ghana's Asante king in early February. The United States was not involved in the theft of the pieces, but Fowler officials said they were "shifting away from the idea of museums as unquestionable repositories of art." 

Diagne is hoping the study will encourage more museums to make that shift. "Audiences are very aware of this problem with African artifacts," he says, "and there is growing pressure on museums to conduct this research."

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