Commemorative Head of an Oba (King)

CultureBenin Kingdom

Date16th century

MediumBrass

DimensionsOverall: 9 1/8 inches (23.18 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust through the generosity of Donald J. and Adele C. Hall, Mr. and Mrs. Herman Robert Sutherland, and an anonymous donor; The Nelson Gallery Foundation; and the exchange of a Trust property

Object number87-7

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

African Art

Terms

DescriptionBenin bronze headExhibition History

Exhibition History

Tempus Fugit: Time Flies, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, October 15-December 31, 2000.

The Power of Bronze: Royal Sculpture from the Kingdom of Benin, Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY, November 21, 2004-February 13, 2005, no. 3.

Gallery Label

This masterfully cast, commemorative image of a divine king's spiritual head displays the ornate, red coral-bead headdress of Benin kingship. Symbolizing wisdom and achievement, the head originally rested on an altar dedicated to ritual communication with this ancestral ruler. There it would have supported an ivory tusk of sacred white carved with images of royal history and court ritual. In the past, the brass was polished to a high "red" sheen evocative of beauty and fearsome power. The irises and parallel lines between the brows of inlaid, locally forged iron invested this image with iron deity Ogun's mystical, transformative powers of creation and destruction.

Published References

Ross E. Taggart, George L. McKenna and Marc F. Wilson, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 2, Art of the Orient, 5^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 240-41, (repro.).

Calendar of Events (The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art) March 1988: 1, 2, (repro).

Ellen R. Goheen, The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1988), 230-31, (repro.).

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 84, (repro.).

Joyce M. Youmans, “African Art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art,” African Arts 33, no. 4 (Winter 2000), 43, 48, (repro.).

Marie-Thérèse Brincard, ed., The Power of Bronze: Royal Sculpture from the Kingdom of Benin, exh. cat. (Purchase, NY: Neuberger Museum of Art, 2004), 16, (repro.).

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 243, 245, (repro.).

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