Provenance of colonial-era collections from Togo in the Museum für Völkerkunde Dresden and the GRASSI Museum für Völkerkunde zu Leipzig (Staatliche Ethnographische Sammlungen Sachsen)

Eight collections containing approximately 700 objects from the historical territory of Togo, which came to the Museums of Ethnology in Dresden and Leipzig as purchases or donations between 1899 and 1939, are the focus of this provenance research project. Their acquisition was related to the activities of German scholars, traders, colonial officials and missionaries in Togo under German colonial rule from 1884 to 1919. In addition to determining the cultural origin of the objects, broad archival research will be used to reconstruct the whereabouts and activities of those persons into whose possession the objects passed at the time. In this context, it will be examined whether these individuals may have been acting within a context of injustice. Special attention will be paid to objects that can be considered culturally sensitive. The question arises as to how and why it was possible to acquire such collections with a religious purpose and a strictly codified knowledge complex.

The project aims to reconstruct the exact circumstances of acquisition of cultural property from the colonial collection context "Togo" and to publish it internationally.

Researchers from Togo, including from the Togo State Archives in Lomé, and from Bénin, Department of History and Archaeology at the University of Abomey-Calavi are conducting the collection and archive research in Germany, Togo, and possibly in Cameroon. The results of the research will be made available in the Online Collection of the Dresden State Art Collections and in a multilingual research/final report to the societies of origin and the professional public.

(c) Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Staatliche Ethnographische Sammlungen Sachsen (SES)