Cross River, Nigeria, 17th century
Cast copper alloy
3 1/8 x 2 inches (7.9 x 5.1 cm)
Provenance: Private collection, London
The figure is cast seated with the legs bent forward and splayed low, the feet worked as heavy rounded pads, and both arms raised from the shoulders to meet at the sides of the head. The head sits large against the body, its features almost entirely subsumed into a rough encrusted surface, with the mass of the shoulders and the raised limbs carrying the composition rather than any incised detail. Green corrosion covers the whole piece in a thick uneven crust that has pooled in the hollows and around the joins of the limbs, with brassy metal breaking through only at the outermost points of the arms and feet.
Small cast figures from the Cross River region of southeastern Nigeria stand apart from the Benin court corpus, worked in a heavier and more compact idiom and generally kept as personal or shrine objects rather than as court commissions. The raised arm posture recurs in cast work from the region and reads as a gesture rather than as an action, though the specific meaning is not recorded for pieces without collection history. The depth of corrosion here is consistent with long burial, and the surface has not been cleaned back to the metal.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
Cross River, Nigeria, 17th century
Cast copper alloy
3 1/8 x 2 inches (7.9 x 5.1 cm)
Provenance: Private collection, London
The figure is cast seated with the legs bent forward and splayed low, the feet worked as heavy rounded pads, and both arms raised from the shoulders to meet at the sides of the head. The head sits large against the body, its features almost entirely subsumed into a rough encrusted surface, with the mass of the shoulders and the raised limbs carrying the composition rather than any incised detail. Green corrosion covers the whole piece in a thick uneven crust that has pooled in the hollows and around the joins of the limbs, with brassy metal breaking through only at the outermost points of the arms and feet.
Small cast figures from the Cross River region of southeastern Nigeria stand apart from the Benin court corpus, worked in a heavier and more compact idiom and generally kept as personal or shrine objects rather than as court commissions. The raised arm posture recurs in cast work from the region and reads as a gesture rather than as an action, though the specific meaning is not recorded for pieces without collection history. The depth of corrosion here is consistent with long burial, and the surface has not been cleaned back to the metal.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
