Faro council has rejected a €2 million offer for a single item of African art housed at its municipal museum.
Entwistle, the UK-based dealers in African artifacts, made the offer for ‘Nkisi Nkondi', a Congolese figure.
Councillors unanimously rejected the proposal, "We knew it would be valuable, but we did not have a reference price," said the deputy mayor, Paulo Santos, adding that the council now will have to update the museum collection’s insurance.
The proposal was that the council should decide between selling the piece and spending the money on upgrading the museum or, keeping the object which was donated by one João de Sousa Viegas in 1917.
Faro assembly's socialist councillors decided to have a go at the Social Democrat mayor, Rogério Bacalhau, and his acolytes by accusing them of "squandering the cultural property of the people of Faro."
The socialists issued a statement even before the meeting was over, saying that for the socialists, "the proposed sale of cultural property, citing financial reasons, it is a real scandal and lays bare the absence of a strategy for the affirmation of Faro."
The proposal in fact was voted unanimously in favour of keeping the rare artifact with the ruling councillors claiming they never intended to sell the item but as such a large sum has been offered for it, the proposal had to be debated.
NKisi Nkondi dates from the C19th and comes from the Congo border with Angola and Zaire.
