Story of a Chameleon Door

Author: Edina Földessy
Photos: Marcell Szász

In 2002, the Museum of Ethnography opened its doors on Chameleon, an exhibition exploring the various symbolic meanings of its titular reptile across the territories of sub-Saharan Africa. The exhibition included a wooden door, which served to illustrate some of the symbolism of the Abomey palace from the Dahomey Kingdom, a state located in the southern parts of modern-day Benin and established in 1625. According to sayings and prophecies, every ruler in Dahomey was invested with a symbolic ‘strong name,’ manifested not only in words, but also in sculpture. One of the symbols of King Glele (1858–1889) was the chameleon, a reference to Lisa, the god of heavenly light (particularly the Sun), who ruled over all humans and their spiritual beings.

The door was fashioned after the original, held by the Musée de l’Homme in Paris, by head restorer János Gaál. When the exhibition closed, it was entered into the Africa Collection as a reproduction. Given its highly specific thematic character, no great future could be predicted for the piece, yet in the wake of a series of international events, the object nonetheless became a conduit for present-day storytelling about the colonial past. 

French President Emmanuel Macron’s speech of 28 November 2017 in Ouagadougou had a significant impact on the controversy surrounding the restitution of forcibly appropriated African artefacts to their countries of origin. In this way, twenty-six royal relics, all of them spoils of war looted by French general Alfred Dodds during France’s war with the Dahomey Kingdom in 1892, were returned to the Benin Republic. Forced to flee, the last ruler had hidden his treasures and set his palace on fire, but the French soldiers, eager to grab what they could, discovered the buried cache. Not long after, Dodds gifted the Musée du Trocadéro, Paris’s first ethnographic museum, three monumental statues of Benin rulers, in addition to thrones, portable altars, four doors (including the counterpart to the one in Budapest), ceremonial dance sceptres, and a number of other artefacts.

Their return to Benin required the enactment of a new law, as the alienation of artefacts from French public collections had formerly been prohibited. The transfer of title was signed by the two heads of state on 9 November 2021, and on the following day, Benin welcomed back the treasures. Since early 2022, they have been on public display in the presidential residence of Cotonou, the country’s capital city. 

The repatriation of objects acquired through colonial violence is a relatively recent process that is gaining momentum. Responses to the idea and solutions for how to do so vary—sometimes wildly—from country to country and institution to institution. No one formula has taken hold even in the countries of origin that are working to reclaim their heritage. Rather, the matter of where and under what circumstances objects are transferred depends on the source communities, various political forces, museum professionals and any number of other parties and factors. 

What role, therefore, might a reproduction play? Today, many significant African artefacts in museums in their countries of origin were, in fact, reproductions, as their original counterparts were held by museum in distant developed countries. Could the situation be reversed, with Western museums displaying reproductions of the objects they restitute?

The process of returning the 26 objects was documented in pictures by Patrick Zachmann.