GothamGallery Fine African Art - Benin Memorial Head

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GGoAA Auction Now GothamGallery Auction Now Items in ebay Store Welcome To The Premier Place For Serious Collectors of Fine Authentic African Tribal Art Over 10 Years Online Serving Thousands of Satisfied Customers Offering the Finest Quality Sub-Saharan African Art Superb Nigeria Kingdom of Benin Bronze Memorial Head Inches: Height: 11.25 Inches Centimeters: Height: 28.5 Centimeters Measurement Sculpture OnlyMaterial: Metal, Bronze Estimated Age: 19th - 20th Century Condition: Good Remarks: Stylized work ancient lost wax method fantastic bronze greenish patina Shipping: US East Coast - Estimated $16.00 Exact rate use shipping calculator INTERNATIONAL BIDDERS WELCOME � � Documentation of Authenticity / Any Available Provenance Will Be Included With This Piece CONDITION Metal corrosion, minor scrapes, overall condition good. Thank you and please view my other items. BACKGROUND The powerful ancient Benin kingdom was founded by the son of an Ife king in the early 14th century AD. It was situated in the forest area of southern Nigeria. The art of bronze casting was introduced around the year 1280. The kingdom reached its maximum size and artistic splendor in the 15th and 16th century. For a long time the Benin bronze sculptures were the only historical evidence dating back several centuries into the West African past, and both the level of technical accomplishment attained in bronze casting, as well as the monumental vigor of the figures represented, were the object of great admiration. Benin bronzes are better known than the artworks from Ife or Owo due to their presence in Western museums since 1890s. In the thirteenth century, the city of Benin was an agglomeration of farms enclosed by walls and a ditch. Each clan was subject to the Oba (king). The “Benin style” is a court art from the palace of the Oba, and has nothing in common with tribal art. The Benin Oba employed a guild of artisans who all lived in the same district of the city. Bronze figures ordered by the king were kept in the palace. The empire flourished until 1897, when the palace was sacked by the English in reprisal for an ambush that had cost the British vice-consul his life. The numerous commemorative brass heads, free-standing figures and groups, plaques in relief, bells and rattle-staffs, small expressive masks and plaques worn on the belt as emblem of offices; chests in the shape of palaces, animals, cult stands, jewelry, etc. cast by Benin metalworkers were created for the royal palace. The heads were placed on the altars of kings, of brass caster corporation chiefs and dignitaries. Occasionally, a brass head was surmounted by a large carving engraved with a procession of different Obas. The altar functioned as a tribute to the deceased and a point of contact with his spirit. Using the bells and rattle stuffs to call the ancestor’s spirit, the Oba offered sacrifices to him and to the earth on the altar. The majority of figures represented court officials, equestrian figures, queens, and roosters. Elaborately decorated human masks, animals, beakers, spoons, gongs, trumpets, arm ornaments, and carvings covered with bands in figured relief. The representations of these objects served above all to exalt the king, the queen mother, the princes and royal household, army commanders, shown with their arms and armor and their retainers (huntsmen, musicians), or alternatively depicted important events. When British forces entered Benin City in 1897 they were surprised to find large quantities of cast brass objects. The technological sophistication and overwhelming naturalism of these pieces contradicted many 19th-century Western assumptions about Africa in general and Benin – regarded as the home of ‘fetish’ and human sacrifice – in particular. Explanations were swiftly generated to cover the epistemological embarrassment. The objects must, it was supposed, have been made by the Portuguese, the Ancient Egyptians... read more

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