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


July 3, 2025
“Would be nice to have a more frank discussion about how objects are collected for the Museum. Saying ‘Donated’ is not enough”
June 17, 2025
Last week, a delegation of Naga people signed a declaration that will lead to the return of 41 Naga ancestral remains currently held in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford
May 24, 2025
Village leaders at San Benito Poité in southern Belize, formerly British Honduras, are claiming that an important collection of artefacts removed from the ancient city of Pusilha is not the lawful property of the British Museum