This ornate piece is a highly unusual Nok piece, which bears markers of the “Classical” Nok style but which deviates substantially from the norm for that group. The general pattern of rendering is traditional, with a cross-legged figure sitting atop a pedestal which is in fact more than likely to be the knop or finial from a large terracotta vessel. The proportions are more naturalistic than is the norm, and the facial proportions are also in scale. The figure is wearing a very thick coil necklace as well as various diadems and ornate hair ornaments. The interesting aspect of this is the fact that the ceramic is positively glossy, which may mean a treatment of the terracotta after it was made, or perhaps a series of libations during its functional life.
The astonishing artistry and early date of Nok pieces makes them among the most important artworks on the African continent. Comparatively little is known of the Nok culture, although the entity – which flourished between 900 BC and 200 AD – is technically a misnomer, for the artistic traditions it represents are the only common characteristics shared by communities that differed in most other respects. Their artworks constitute the most sophisticated and formalised early African artistic tradition outside Egypt. Technically, they are very unusual because of the manner in which coiled and subtractive sculpting methods were used to capture likenesses. Aesthetically, they are both naturalistic and expressionist, with highly distinctive elongated forms, triangular eyes, pierced pupils/nostrils and elaborate hairstyles. Substyles of the Nok tradition include the Jemaa Style, the Katsina Ala Style (elongated heads) and the Sokoto Style (elongated monobrow foreheads, lending a severe expression to the face) and random variants such as the Herm Statues of Kuchamfa (simplified cylindrical figures topped with normal heads) and the “standard” three-dimensional standing figures, which subscribe to the Jemaa style. It is to the Katsina Ala group that the current piece can be attributed.
The function of Nok art is unclear, although the care with which it is executed has led some to claim they represent nobility, or perhaps ancestors to which obeisance and sacrifices were offered. The largest ones may have been placed in structures that had ceremonial or ritual importance at the time, while smaller ones may have been personal or domestic talismans or deities/spirits. They are always socially elevated insofar as this can be ascertained (i.e. jewellery, weaponry) although the lack of context makes this speculative at best. The presence of bases that are hollowed and/or broken has led academics to suggest that they were the tops of very large vessels, perhaps used as sacrificial or tributary pieces.
This is an impressive piece of Nok art.