Restitution: Debate and Action

On June 7, 2018, at 11:00 am, a press conference, organized by the private Angolan Sindika Dokolo Foundation, was held in an elegant hotel on the Grand Sablon Square in Brussels. The objective of this gathering was to publicize and celebrate the return of six objects to the National Museum of Dundo in northeastern Angola, from where they are said to have “gone missing.” The pieces included a marvelous Chokwe Mwana Pwo mask (Fig. 1) and a chief's chair (Fig. 2), as well as a Chokwe pipe (Fig. 3), in addition to Shinji objects, namely a Chihongo wooden mask, a small stool, and a caryatid bowl (Figs. 4–6). This restitution ceremony is the third, following two in 2016, in Luanda at the Presidential Palace and subsequently in Paris at the Angolan Embassy; afterward, the pieces were displayed at the...