On 9 February 1897, the British punitive expedition against the Kingdom of Benin began. The operation, led by Rear-Admiral Harry Rawson after the killing of a British party approaching Benin City, became one of the defining cultural-property seizures of the colonial era. After fighting their way to the city, British forces deposed Oba Ovonramwen, burned and ransacked palace compounds, and removed thousands of royal, religious, historical, and mnemonic objects, including the works now broadly called the Benin Bronzes. The episode matters in art history because these objects transformed European views of West African metalwork while also becoming central evidence in debates over museum collecting, colonial violence, and restitution.
The dispersal of Benin court art seeded major museum collections and remains a benchmark case for repatriation claims.