Cultural Restitution

May 18, 2020
SWEDEN
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Sweden

Updated May 2024


Below is a schedule of successful restitutions made by Sweden, together with other Swedish restitution news.  Entries are updated regularly.


May 2024

Sweden's Ambassador to Nigeria has announced her government's intention to return thirty-nine Benin artefacts to Nigeria's National Commission for Museums and Monuments

The Guardian


June 2022

Nineteen years after making the initial request, a Maaso Kova ceremonial deer's head and 23 other artefacts from the Yaqui Nation in northern Mexico have been returned by Sweden's Museum of Ethnography

ArtDaily


June 2020

Nationalmuseum Sweden has recommended the return of a stolen painting by the School of Lucas Cranach the Elder to Muzeum Narodowe we Wroclawiu in Poland

Art Daily


February 2008

Lund University in southern Sweden returned the remains of two Aboriginals after the Swedish Government ordered the repatriation of all Aboriginal remains

Sydney Morning Herald


September 2004

Sweden's National Museum of Ethnography returns the remains of 15 Aboriginals to Australia after public opinion was infuriated after confirmation Swedish explorers had stolen them 

NBC News




More News

Imperial Gold Hairpin to return to Ethiopia

December 5, 2025
A rare and important 19th century gold hairpin once owned by Empress Tiruwork, wife of the Abyssinian Emperor Tewodros II, will be returning to Ethiopia following negotiations by the Royal Ethiopian Trust with the Rome auction house Bertolami Fine Art

Protests in favour of a Benin Royal Museum frustrate ambitions of Nigeria’s Museum of West African Art

November 25, 2025
In 2022 several western collections made a decision to transfer ownership of their Benin Bronzes to Nigeria. Reassured by progress on the construction of a major new facility in Benin City, they understood their Benin artefacts would be exhibited in a new museum to be called the Edo Museum of West African Art

Why the Rosetta Stone will not be returning to Egypt ... just yet

November 11, 2025
After years of delay and political distraction, the official opening of the new Grand Egyptian Museum finally took place in the shadow of the pyramids on the evening of November 1st attended by monarchs, world leaders, heads of state and government