Edo, Kingdom of Benin, Nigeria, 18th or early 19th century
Cast copper alloy
Height 6 1/4 inches (15.9 cm)
Provenance: Constance McCormick Fearing, Santa Barbara, acquired in the 1960s
The bell is four sided and tapers from a wide open mouth to a flat closed top, above which a broad ribbed loop rises for suspension, its surface cut with close parallel grooves across the full width. Each face carries an overall ground of small cast crescents laid in vertical courses, framed at the mouth and the shoulder by bands of punched dots, and a serpentine form descends the length of one panel with a leaf shaped terminal at its foot. A face in low relief sits at the center of the principal panel, worked with a striated coiffure, scarification marks above the eyes, and a small closed mouth, and a break in the metal opens beside it where the wall has torn through.
Eroro bells were cast for altars at Benin, hung or set among the regalia and sounded to summon the attention of ancestors at the shrines maintained by the Oba and by chiefs. The four sided form with the ribbed suspension loop is particular to Benin and separates these from the round bells of the wider region, while the relief face and the serpent belong to the vocabulary of altar imagery rather than to decoration. The casting is thin walled throughout, which is what allowed the tear beside the relief face and what gives the bell its voice.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
Edo, Kingdom of Benin, Nigeria, 18th or early 19th century
Cast copper alloy
Height 6 1/4 inches (15.9 cm)
Provenance: Constance McCormick Fearing, Santa Barbara, acquired in the 1960s
The bell is four sided and tapers from a wide open mouth to a flat closed top, above which a broad ribbed loop rises for suspension, its surface cut with close parallel grooves across the full width. Each face carries an overall ground of small cast crescents laid in vertical courses, framed at the mouth and the shoulder by bands of punched dots, and a serpentine form descends the length of one panel with a leaf shaped terminal at its foot. A face in low relief sits at the center of the principal panel, worked with a striated coiffure, scarification marks above the eyes, and a small closed mouth, and a break in the metal opens beside it where the wall has torn through.
Eroro bells were cast for altars at Benin, hung or set among the regalia and sounded to summon the attention of ancestors at the shrines maintained by the Oba and by chiefs. The four sided form with the ribbed suspension loop is particular to Benin and separates these from the round bells of the wider region, while the relief face and the serpent belong to the vocabulary of altar imagery rather than to decoration. The casting is thin walled throughout, which is what allowed the tear beside the relief face and what gives the bell its voice.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
