Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Benin bronze sculpture tradition is thought to have derived from or been influenced by that of the older nearby Kingdom of Ife in southwest Nigeria. [5] [6] [7] While the collection is known as the Benin Bronzes, [18] like most West African "bronzes" the pieces are mostly made of brass of variable composition.
In the Benin kingdom and several other Yoruba kingdoms which had intense royal and economic relations, the Ada was used in a public manner to project the authority of the Monarch. [21] The Omo n'Oba of Benin, the Olowo Of Owo, and the Olu of Warri, are among the kings who had a sword-bearer carrying an Ada whenever they presented in public.
The royal arts of the Benin Kingdom of southern region Nigeria affirm the centrality of the Oba, or divine king, portraying his divine nature. While recording the kingdom's significant historical events and the Oba's involvement with them, they also initiate the Oba's interactions with the supernatural and honor his deified ancestors, forging a continuity that is vital to the kingdom's well-being.
Okukor is the name given to a bronze statue of a cock from West Africa, held by Jesus College, Cambridge, from 1905 to 2021. One of the Benin bronzes, it was taken from the Kingdom of Benin during the Benin Expedition of 1897, a punitive expedition dispatched to punish the Oba of Benin after a Royal Niger Company delegation was ambushed and killed.
Many Benin works of art entered the European art market after the Benin Expedition of 1897 – Four cast bronze heads of the queen are known and are currently in the collections of the British Museum in London, [1] the World Museum in Liverpool, [2] the Nigerian National Museum in Lagos, [3] and the Ethnological Museum of Berlin. [4]
The Benin Bronzes are really brass, and the Romanesque Baptismal font at St Bartholomew's Church, Liège is described as both bronze and brass. In the Bronze Age, two forms of bronze were commonly used: "classic bronze", about 10% tin, was used in casting; and "mild bronze", about 6% tin, was hammered from ingots to make sheets.
In 2021, the University of Aberdeen approved the repatriation of one of the Benin Bronzes, which was handed to a delegation that included representatives of Ewuare II on 28 October 2021. [10] He received it, and a bronze cockerel returned by Jesus College, Cambridge , at a ceremony in the royal palace in Benin City on 19 February 2022.
Warrior Chief, one of the Benin Bronzes to be repatriated and shown in the museum. The Museum of West African Art (MOWAA) is a planned museum for west African art to be built in Benin City, Nigeria. It will show over 300 items on loan from European museums. Its architect, David Adjaye, revealed renderings for the museum in November 2020.