This striking bronze/brass head reflects a major tradition in West African cultural heritage, in terms of aesthetics and technological innovation. The Ife manner of depicting the human form was unique in its time and has been constantly referred back to by every major school of artistic representation. Within the Ife-Yoruba-Benin polity the features have been absorbed and are often reiterated in agglomerative sculptural forms, as in the present case.

The gracility of this piece suggests that it might represent a woman, although most of the highly ornate pieces currently known are of males. The brows are relatively light, but the lips, nose and chin are unusually thick and robust. The cheekbones are high, and the eyes narrow – both of these characteristics usually implies a woman rather than a man, although we are not fully aware of the whole range of Ife stylistic methods. The two points that make a male identification likely are the very broad nose and the rows of piercings around the lips, which were probably used for threading threads or other perishable materials to represent a beard. Perhaps most striking about this piece is the meticulous vertical impressed lines – representing scarifications – that cover the entire face other than the eyes and the lips, which are also decorated with much finer incisions. The piece is surmounted by an ornate hat, or perhaps crown, made of fibrous material in vertical orientation with a medium brim and a central diadem with a spike (made of what appears to be a woven material) rising vertically into the air. It has an integrated flap that hands down the neck in rear view. It superficially resembles a coral crown as worn by later Benin kings, although the diadem/spike arrangement is uniquely Ife. The piece stands on an integral columnar neck with 7/8 horizontal bands of decoration and several large holes drilled around the perimeter of the base. The top of the head (hat) is open posteriorly, so that the piece resembles the tusk-bearing Oba heads used to decorate commemorative altars in Benin. The drill holes make it likely that the head was mounted onto a body made of some perishable material such as wood, or perhaps partially shrouded in textile.

The piece was produced using the comparatively crude method of cire perdue (lost wax) casting, in which a single, unique object is created from a single-use mould. It is crude in that most cultures are unable to make it especially thin in the mould, in order to capture fine, delicate surface detail. Early European explorers were so astonished by the fineness of these pieces that they refused to believe that the African populations had manufactured them, despite the fact that “classic” African features are depicted in every case. The Ife were also able to cast their pieces in almost pure bronze, without recourse to zinc that is used today to make the metal flow easier; they achieved this using multi-section crucibles and complex moulds, although the finer details of their craft still elude us. As suggested above, the piercings and the neck format imply a ceremonial role for the piece, perhaps as a ritual object that was displayed or paraded on special occasions. The personage portrayed is probably a member of the royal family, modelled from life. The proportions of the piece, however, imply that it might have been made at a slightly later date than “classic” Ife pieces, but there is no doubt that it was made within the cultural constraints of the Yoruba/Benin polities.

This is powerfully-rendered and impressive piece of African art.