Bronze figure - Bini Edo / Benin Kingdom - Nigeria - SOLD OUT
It is through the extreme richness and the immense variety of its artistic corpus that the kingdom of Benin still resonates at the moment. It began in the course of the twelfth century to die in the late nineteenth, crushed by the British empire.
This kingdom in which several dynasties succeeded one another left many physical traces testifying to its influence especially at the level of mastery of the technique called lost wax thanks to which the sculptors of the kingdom poured innumerable pieces of very different volumes. Thus, the bronzes of Benin are probably the best known and undoubtedly the most refined among the corpus of African art.
Among these pieces are the bronze plaques that decorated the royal palace and are a fresco of vital interest to historians. We can also mention the representations of riders illustrating historical characters unavoidable in the mythology of the kingdom. The heads and statues in bronze were also created with the effigy of dignitaries or important foreign characters, and constitute important archaeological traces, such as effigies of Portuguese soldiers who established the first trading posts to trade precious materials in exchange for supplies particularly the firearms that fascinated the natives.
At the end of a kingdom under the tutelage of the British Empire, Benin was finally destroyed and looted in a punitive raid sent in response to the murder of a British emissary ordered by the Oba (or king). The royal treasures were repatriated to Europe and gradually disseminated in museums and private collections around the world.
00556
Data sheet
- Presumed dating
- Circa 1940
- Size
- 54 x 14 cm
- Ethnic group
- Material(s)
- Bronze
- Country
- Origin
- Tribal Art Collection United Kingdom
- Condition
- Excellent
You might also like
It is through the extreme richness and the immense variety of its artistic corpus that the kingdom of Benin still resonates at the moment. It began in the course of the twelfth century to die in the late nineteenth, crushed by the British empire.
This kingdom in which several dynasties succeeded one another left many physical traces testifying to its influence especially at the level of mastery of the technique called lost wax thanks to which the sculptors of the kingdom poured innumerable pieces of very different volumes. Thus, the bronzes of Benin are probably the best known and undoubtedly the most refined among the corpus of African art.
Among these pieces are the bronze plaques that decorated the royal palace and are a fresco of vital interest to historians. We can also mention the representations of riders illustrating historical characters unavoidable in the mythology of the kingdom. The heads and statues in bronze were also created with the effigy of dignitaries or important foreign characters, and constitute important archaeological traces, such as effigies of Portuguese soldiers who established the first trading posts to trade precious materials in exchange for supplies particularly the firearms that fascinated the natives.
At the end of a kingdom under the tutelage of the British Empire, Benin was finally destroyed and looted in a punitive raid sent in response to the murder of a British emissary ordered by the Oba (or king). The royal treasures were repatriated to Europe and gradually disseminated in museums and private collections around the world.