Extremely Rare Royal Benin Aluminum Casting, Yoruba / Benin. #59

  
Kingdom was founded by the son of an. King in the early 14th century AD. It was situated in the forest area of southern. The art of bronze casting was introduced around the year 1280. The kingdom reached its maximum size and artistic splendor in the 15th and 16th century. For a long time the Benin bronze sculptures were the only historical evidence dating back several centuries into the West. African past, and both the level of technical accomplishment attained in bronze casting, as well as the monumentalvigor of the figures represented, were the object of great admiration. Bronzes are better known than the artworks from. Or Owo due to their presence in Western museums since 1890s. In the thirteenth century, the city of. Was an agglomeration of farms enclosed by walls and a ditch. Each clan was subject to the oba (king). Style is a court art from the palace of the oba, and has nothing in common with tribal art. Oba employed a guild of artisans who all lived in the same district of the city. Bronze figures ordered by the king were kept in the palace. The empire flourished until 1897, when the palace was sacked by the English in reprisal for an ambush that had cost the British vice-consul his life. The numerous commemorative brass heads, free-standing figures and groups, plaques in relief, bells and rattle-staffs, small expressive masks and plaquettes worn on the belt as emblem of offices; chests in the shape of palaces, animals, cult stands, jewelry, etc. Cast by Benin metalworkers were created for the royal palace. The heads were placed on the altars of kings, of brass caster corporation chiefs and dignitaries.

Occasionally, a brass head was surmounted by a carved ivory tusk engraved with a procession of different obas. The altar functioned as a tribute to the deceased and a point of contact with his spirit. Using the bells and rattle stuffs to call the ancestor's spirit, the oba offered sacrifices to him and to the earth on the altar. The majority of figures represented court officials, equestrian figures, queens, and roosters. Of objects in ivory: most elaborately decorated human masks, animals, beakers, spoons, gongs, trumpets, arm ornaments, and large elephant tusks covered with bands in figured relief.

The representations of these objects served above all to exalt the king, the queen mother, the princes and royal household, army commanders, shown with their arms and armor and their retainers (huntsmen, musicians), or alternatively depicted important events. Measures 13 1/2" by 6 1/2". Extremely rare to see heads made of solid aluminum.