There can be few collectors of African art who have not heard about the British Benin expedition of 1897. Benin City, in Nigeria, was sacked by a British led force, following an attack on a group of British administrators and their African bearers. Hundreds of bronze artworks were removed from the Oba’s palace. Today many of these beautiful objects are to be found in the British Museum in London, and in other European and American museums and private collections. The Government of Nigeria has called for the return of these items.

On November 6th, 2005, the Volkerkundemuseum der Josefine und Eduard von Portheim-Stiftung in Heidelberg, Germany, opened its doors to an exhibition of African art. This was “Mit dem Auge des Astheten. Kunst aus Gabun” (“With the Eye of the Aesthete: Art from Gabon”). According to the catalogue, the seventy-odd items on show were ancient, and of great importance. However, according to Lorenz Homberger and Christine Stelzig, “it appears to us that many of the objects shown in Heidelberg are contemporary reproductions and therefore problematic to the trained eye”. They belonged to, “the many thousands of copies flooding the market (that) are produced in abundance not only in Gabon, but also, and primarily, in workshops in Cameroon, where they are laboriously ‘aged’”.

According to Allen F. Roberts, “Leopards are one of the most commonly portrayed animals in African art. Throughout Africa, the leopard is symbolically associated with political authority. As extraordinarily intelligent and courageous animals, leopards readily lend themselves to the production of politically useful metaphors. As predators of humans, leopards are associated with individuals and organisations that have the authority to take human life. Leopards are often considered the animal-others of chiefs, kings, and members of the governing bodies charged with maintaining law and order.”

Are art collections the result of the enthusiasm of people who, for whatever reason, follow their primeval urge to hunt and gather, an impulse that in prehistoric times was necessary for survival? But then great collections are not an essential necessity and seldom make a profit. Perhaps it would be better to regard the collection of works of art as a significant result of taking pleasure in possessions.

Walter Potter was born in the Sussex village of Bramber in 1835. As a boy he was fascinated by nature and the world of taxidermy. Walter’s parents kept the White Lion (now the Castle) in Bramber and Walter, who had started to practice taxidermy, moved his specimens into the pub’s stable loft. In 1851 the Great Exhibition was held in London’s Hyde Park and one exhibitor, Hermann Plouquet, displayed “The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg”, a selection of stuffed animals in human situations. This style of presentation became highly popular and may have inspired the young Walter Potter, who soon began producing similar tableaux. There is no evidence that Potter actually attended the Great Exhibition, but he would almost certainly have seen Plouquet’s book, also titled “The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg”, which sold well in England. One visitor who did attend the Great Exhibition was Queen Victoria, who found Plouquet’s display “very impressive”.