"The uncertainty surrounding questions of dating has encouraged a proliferation of questionable expert opinions and authentications of high-quality copies, which continue to be produced not only in Benin City but also in other casting centres across Africa. As a result, the past decades have witnessed a certain collecting enthusiasm for Benin objects that have been falsely classified as antique.” *1
— Barbara Plankensteiner
This passage raises a fundamental methodological question. It concerns not merely the dating of individual objects, but the manner in which empirical evidence is evaluated within scholarly research.
According to the Berlin art dealer Peter Herrmann, art historians and ethnologists were invited as early as 2007 to examine a group of bronze objects for which independent thermoluminescence analyses suggested considerable age.² Whether these dating results ultimately prove correct is, at this stage, secondary. Scientific inquiry begins not with certainty, but with the careful examination of unexpected or potentially contradictory evidence.
Against this background, Plankensteiner's wording is noteworthy. The expression "Benin objects falsely classified as antique" does not simply describe an unresolved research question. The term "falsely" already anticipates the conclusion of the debate. It leaves little room for the possibility that individual scientific dating results might require established art-historical assumptions to be reconsidered.
This touches upon a central principle of scientific methodology formulated by Karl Popper. Scientific hypotheses derive their credibility not from repeated confirmation but from their openness to potential refutation. New empirical evidence must therefore retain the capacity to modify—or, where necessary, overturn—existing interpretations. If this possibility is excluded from the outset, hypotheses lose their provisional character and become insulated against empirical falsification.
From this perspective, a broader methodological issue may be identified within parts of contemporary Benin scholarship. Scientific analyses are generally accepted when they support established attributions. By contrast, analyses that could challenge accepted chronologies or assumptions of provenance often encounter considerable scepticism before their results have been subjected to detailed scholarly examination. In this context, the expression "questionable expert opinions" appears to describe less the outcome of critical evaluation than a preliminary judgement concerning which forms of evidence are regarded as worthy of serious consideration.
The consequence is an epistemological asymmetry. The same standards of evaluation do not always appear to be applied equally to museum collections and to objects circulating within the contemporary art market. Yet a substantial proportion of Europe's Benin collections themselves entered museums through the international art market during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Why that historical market is generally regarded as a legitimate source of authentic objects, whereas comparable objects appearing on today's market are frequently viewed with suspicion prior to comprehensive scientific examination, remains an open methodological question deserving further investigation.
This argument should not be understood as a defence of the art market, nor as an endorsement of every scientific dating result. Rather, it is a plea for the consistent application of identical methodological standards to all objects under investigation. Authenticity should be established neither through institutional provenance nor through a general presumption of forgery directed at the market. Instead, it should emerge from the cumulative assessment of archaeological, art-historical, technical, and scientific evidence. Only under these conditions does scholarly inquiry remain genuinely open to revision—and it is precisely this openness that distinguishes scientific investigation from the confirmation of pre-existing assumptions.
A Comparison of Two Bronze Figure Pairs
The following comparison juxtaposes two pairs of bronze figures whose stylistic execution could hardly be more different.
The pair illustrated by Frank Willett measures approximately 28.5 cm in height, whereas the pair in the Wolfgang Jaenicke collection measures approximately 66.0 cm.
The Wolfgang Jaenicke pair can be viewed here:
https://wolfgang-jaenicke.com/products/an-ife-bronze-couple?_pos=1&_psq=ife&_ss=e&_v=1.0
The male figure published by Frank Willett was reportedly discovered without a face. Its facial features were subsequently reconstructed using a plastic modelling compound.
s. Frank Willet “IFE”, with the original version of the Ita Yemoo Pair of 1957
*1 Die Schlussbemerkung des Beitrages von Barbara Plankenstein in dem von ihr herausgegebenen Band Benin. Geraubte Geschichte S. 60.