Edo, Kingdom of Benin, Nigeria, 18th century or earlier
Wood
Height 14 1/4 inches (36.2 cm)
Provenance: Oscard Agard, Newark, New Jersey; Sotheby Parke Bernet, October 1977, lot 570; La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, inventory number 1958.102
The figure stands frontally with arms held close to the body and hands resting against the hips, the weight carried on short columnar legs above a plain integral base. A tall ridged cap rises from the head in stacked bands and descends at the sides to frame the face, which is worked with heavy lidded eyes, a broad nose, and a small mouth, while dense rows of beading cover the throat and shoulders in the high collar worn by attendants of the Oba's court. Below the waist the wrapper is carved in close horizontal registers of the same beaded texture, and the surface throughout has weathered to a dry pale brown with the grain lifted along the vertical axis.
Attendants of this kind served within the palace at Benin City, and the beaded collar and cap identify rank and function within a court where dress was closely regulated by the Oba. Wooden figures from Benin survive in far smaller numbers than the cast copper alloy corpus, since the climate is unforgiving to timber and much of what remained above ground was dispersed after 1897. The erosion visible across the shoulders and lower body is consistent with long age and with the shrine or altar use for which figures of this scale were made.
This figure was held by the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, now the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, under inventory number 1958.102, and passed through Sotheby Parke Bernet in October 1977 as lot 570. An institutional accession number of this date places the piece in the United States by the late 1950s, well before the export restrictions that govern Nigerian material today. Sale catalogue and museum records of this kind form a documentary trail that can be checked independently of the object.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
Edo, Kingdom of Benin, Nigeria, 18th century or earlier
Wood
Height 14 1/4 inches (36.2 cm)
Provenance: Oscard Agard, Newark, New Jersey; Sotheby Parke Bernet, October 1977, lot 570; La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, inventory number 1958.102
The figure stands frontally with arms held close to the body and hands resting against the hips, the weight carried on short columnar legs above a plain integral base. A tall ridged cap rises from the head in stacked bands and descends at the sides to frame the face, which is worked with heavy lidded eyes, a broad nose, and a small mouth, while dense rows of beading cover the throat and shoulders in the high collar worn by attendants of the Oba's court. Below the waist the wrapper is carved in close horizontal registers of the same beaded texture, and the surface throughout has weathered to a dry pale brown with the grain lifted along the vertical axis.
Attendants of this kind served within the palace at Benin City, and the beaded collar and cap identify rank and function within a court where dress was closely regulated by the Oba. Wooden figures from Benin survive in far smaller numbers than the cast copper alloy corpus, since the climate is unforgiving to timber and much of what remained above ground was dispersed after 1897. The erosion visible across the shoulders and lower body is consistent with long age and with the shrine or altar use for which figures of this scale were made.
This figure was held by the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, now the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, under inventory number 1958.102, and passed through Sotheby Parke Bernet in October 1977 as lot 570. An institutional accession number of this date places the piece in the United States by the late 1950s, well before the export restrictions that govern Nigerian material today. Sale catalogue and museum records of this kind form a documentary trail that can be checked independently of the object.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
