George Osborne, the chairman of the British Museum, has been pushing for a partnership with Greece which could allow the Marbles to be returned to Athens.
The British Museum is prevented from giving away items in its collection, held for the public, by the British Museum Act 1963 which was originally introduced over concerns floundering museums could sell off their assets.
The V&A Museum is similarly hampered by the later 1983 National Heritage Act.
Tristram Hunt, the director of the V&A and who has long called for legislative changes that would allow museums to legally hand over contested treasures, said the new deal had been struck “as part of our commitment to sharing collections with a colonial past”.
Multi-museum deal will span three years
Under the British Museum’s deal, artefacts will be loaned for a period of three years. The V&A’s deal will also last three years but with the option to renew the arrangement with no definite endpoint.
The announcement of the multi-museum deal for the objects coincides with the 150th anniversary of the Third Anglo-Asante War which broke out in 1873. The conflict resulted in a British victory over the West African empire which centred on territory that later became Ghana.
British forces burnt the capital of Kumasi to the ground and looted the Asante royal palace, taking away and later selling the gold central to the court and the empire’s economy.
Other golden artefacts were given to the British as reparations payments for the cost of the war, while some were later acquired and sold at auction when the Asante people were under colonial rule. Ghana gained independence from the British in 1957.
Now largely citizens of Ghana, the Asante, who are also known as the Ashanti, remain culturally distinct with their own customs, legal framework, and spiritual practices.
Artefacts which made their way into the collections of the British Museum include items of looted golden regalia worn by Asante kings. The V&A holds a golden peace pipe, among other treasures.