Although today the Wellcome Collection no longer holds objects from Benin City, it did so in the past. Over two hundred pieces from Benin were dispersed after the death of Henry Wellcome in 1936 by sale to or exchange with other institutions, including the British Museum. See the Digital Benin provenance section for more details. ‘Flimsy inventory cards’ – digitised object cards – can be consulted in the collection’s archives. For more information on these flimsy inventory cards, see here.
The Wellcome Library contains one of the most important collections of digitised sales catalogues from the 1890s to the 1940s. Catalogues relevant to the sale of Benin pieces are included in the Digital Benin archival section.
Digital Benin collates digital material from institutions, and some of this material is inherently colonial and contains words, terms and phrases that are inaccurate, derogatory and harmful towards African and African diasporic communities. Catalogue transcriptions, book titles, exhibition titles and museum titles may contain harmful terms. We recognise the potential for the material to cause physical and mental distress as well as evoke strong emotions. Owing to the scale of the collection’s data, a process to implement sensitive-content warnings in the displayed data is still incomplete. The material within the catalogue does not represent Digital Benin’s views. Digital Benin maintains a strong anti-colonial, anti-racist position and affirms its support for centring the humanity of historically marginalised and disenfranchised communities. Read more about the background of this statement here