The Benin ivory mask is a miniature sculptural portrait in

ivory Ivory is a hard, white material from the tusks (traditionally from elephants) and teeth of animals, that consists mainly of dentine, one of the physical structures of teeth and tusks. The chemical structure of the teeth and tusks of mammals ...

Idia Idia was the mother of Esigie, who reigned as Oba (king) of the Edo people from 1504 to 1550 Historians do know that Idia was alive during the Idah war (1515-1516) because she played a role that led to a great Benin victory. It has been argued ...

, the first

Iyoba The Iyoba of Benin is an important female titleholder in the chieftaincy system of the Kingdom of Benin, a Nigerian traditional state. She is otherwise known in English as the Queen Mother. History When King Ozolua died in the fifteenth century ...

(

Queen Mother A queen mother is a former queen, often a queen dowager, who is the mother of the reigning monarch. The term has been used in English since the early 1560s. It arises in hereditary monarchies in Europe and is also used to describe a number of ...

) of the 16th century Benin Empire, taking the form of a traditional African mask. The masks were looted by the British from the palace of the

Oba of Benin The Oba of Benin is the traditional ruler and the custodian of the culture of the Edo people and all Edoid people. The then Kingdom of Benin (not to be confused with the modern-day and unrelated Republic of Benin, which was then known as Daho ...

in the Benin Expedition of 1897. Two almost identical masks are kept at the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docume ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

and at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 100 ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

.Metropolitan Museum Collectio
Queen Mother Pendant Mask: Iyoba
MetMuseum, retrieved 1 November 2014 Both feature a serene face of the Queen Mother wearing a beaded headdress, a beaded

choker A choker is a close-fitting necklace worn around the neck, typically 14 inch to 16 inch in length. Chokers can be made of a variety of materials, including velvet, plastic, beads, latex, leather, metal, such as silver, gold, or platinum, etc. The ...

at her neck,

scarification Scarification involves scratching, etching, burning/ branding, or superficially cutting designs, pictures, or words into the skin as a permanent body modification or body art. The body modification can take roughly 6–12 months to heal. In th ...

highlighted by iron

inlay Inlay covers a range of techniques in sculpture and the decorative arts for inserting pieces of contrasting, often colored materials into depressions in a base object to form Ornament (art), ornament or pictures that normally are flush with th ...

on the forehead, and all framed by the flange of an

openwork Openwork or open-work is a term in art history, architecture and related fields for any technique that produces decoration by creating holes, piercings, or gaps that go right through a solid material such as metal, wood, stone, pottery, cloth, l ...

tiara and collar of symbolic beings, as well as double loops at each side for attachment of the pendant. There are also examples on the same theme at the

Seattle Art Museum The Seattle Art Museum (commonly known as SAM) is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington, United States. It operates three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum (SAAM) in Volunteer Park on C ...

and the Linden Museum, and one in a private collection. The British Museum example in particular has also become a cultural emblem of modern

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of G ...

since FESTAC 77, a major pan-African cultural festival held in Lagos, Nigeria in 1977, which chose as is official emblem a replica of the mask crafted by Erhabor Emokpae.

Origins and history

Three of the ivory masks

File:Met Queen Mother Mask (cropped).jpg,

, New York File:Idia mask BM Af1910 5-13 1.jpg,

, London File:Miniaturmaske, Edo.jpg, National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Nigeria ( Linden Museum, Stuttgart until restitution in 2022)

Benin Empire

In the early 16th century, the dynamic Esigie ruled the Benin Empire of the Edo people as its Oba. He came to power as

Portuguese explorers Portuguese maritime exploration resulted in the numerous territories and maritime routes recorded by the Portuguese as a result of their intensive maritime journeys during the 15th and 16th centuries. Portuguese sailors were at the vanguard of Eu ...

first made contact with the empire. The empire traded pepper, ivory, local textiles, and slaves for brass and coral beads. Esigie engaged in two major conflicts. First, his half-brother fought a protracted civil war over the

line of succession An order of succession or right of succession is the line of individuals necessitated to hold a high office when it becomes vacated such as head of state or an honour such as a title of nobility.Igala Kingdom and captured their leader. Esigie rewarded his key political and mystical advisor during these trials, his mother

, with the title of ''Iyoba'' (

)—the first in a tradition of Queen Mother advisors. The identification with Idia was made by Oba Akenzua II in the mid-20th century.

Ritual use

The

commissioned works from his guild of ivory and wood carvers, the ''Igbesanmwan''. Their works were customized for their ruler, between the material connotations of ivory and the visual motifs in the carvings. At least two of the masks feature Portuguese imagery (although this imagery outlasted the actual Portuguese presence) and thus were likely created during Esigie's early-16th century rule (possibly ca. 1520), either during Idia's life or soon after her death. The similarities between the masks indicate that they were likely created at the same time by the same artist. Their details match the comparable carving qualities of ivory spoons and

salt cellar A salt cellar (also called a salt, salt-box and a salt pig) is an article of tableware for holding and dispensing salt. In British English, the term is normally used for what in North American English are called salt shakers. Salt cellars can be ...

s commissioned during the same period, the early period of Benin art, the phase of strongest affiliation with Ife or Yoruba art. Ivory works from Benin were mainly for the Oba to use in ritual. The masks may have been used in ceremonies including the Ugie Iyoba commemoration of the Oba's mother, as well the Emobo purification ceremony to expel bad spirits from the land. Similar pendant masks are mainly used in contemporary Emobo ceremonies focused on bad spirits, though the traditions of Emobo may have changed throughout history. Four rungs on the side of the masks, above and below each ear, let the masks hang in suspension and indicate that the masks were suspended from a cord, though experts have disagreed on how they were worn. British Museum art historian

William Fagg William Buller Fagg (28 April 1914 – 10 July 1992) was a British curator and anthropologist. He was the Keeper of the Department of Ethnography at the British Museum (1969–1974), and pioneering historian of Yoruban and Nigerian art, with a ...

concluded that unlike the small brass pendant masks worn at the waist by modern kings, the ivory mask was likely worn around the neck. An 1830s drawing of a similar mask worn at the breast by a neighboring ruler confirms Fagg's theory. Based on the position of the rungs, Metropolitan curator Alisa LaGamma also affirmed the theory. Benin specialist and anthropologist Paula Ben-Amos, however, wrote that the masks were worn on the waist as pendants during the Ugie Iyoba and Emobo ceremonies. The hollow masks likely served as

amulet An amulet, also known as a good luck charm or phylactery, is an object believed to confer protection upon its possessor. The word "amulet" comes from the Latin word amuletum, which Pliny's ''Natural History'' describes as "an object that protect ...

ic containers. Below the mask's collars, the ring of small loops are attachment points for crotal bells.

Description and interpretation

They are made of ivory, long and ovular in shape, and thinly carved, approaching semiopaqueness. The similar British Museum and Metropolitan pendant masks have elaborate ornament at their hair and collar. Each mask's gaze is accentuated with iron inlay at its pupils and lower eye outline, and the eyes are slightly diverted by the eyelids. This use of inlay departed from the ways in which Europeans used ivory. Above the eyes, the four

supraorbital Supraorbital refers to the region immediately above the eye sockets, where in humans the eyebrows are located. It denotes several anatomical features, such as: *Supraorbital artery *Supraorbital foramen *Supraorbital gland *Supraorbital nerve *Sup ...

marks are associated with Benin women. The masks' facial features are symmetrical and skillfully precise. Their lips are parted, nostrils slightly flared, and hair dense with tiny coils and a rectilinear hairline. The masks' expression of "impersonal coolness" reflected the stylistic conventions of the Oba's ivory carvers guild, with a naturalism typical of craft in early Benin art.

A powerful woman

The depiction of women is rare in Benin art, though the position of

, known to Edo tradition as "the only woman who went to war", is exceptional, and the very title of ''Iyoba'' or Queen Mother was created for her. The headdress forms part of the ''

ukpe-okhue The ukpe-okhue (Edo for "parrot's beak") is a crown traditionally worn by the ''Iyoba'' (queen mother) of the Oba of Benin. It is formed of a snood-like net of precious coral beadwork, using ''ileke'' ("royal") cylindrical beads. This type of cro ...

'' ("parrot's beak") hairstyle she originated, and is more clearly seen on the

Bronze Head of Queen Idia The Bronze Head of Queen Idia is a commemorative bronze head from the medieval Kingdom of Benin in West Africa that probably represents Idia, mother of Oba Esigie, made during the early sixteenth century at the Benin court. Many Benin works of ...

. The depicted precious coral of the headdress and choker are in the form of cylindrical ''ileke'' ("royal") beads, which it was the specially-granted privilege of the Queen Mother to wear, being usually reserved for the Oba and the ''Edogun'' (war chief). The Linden Museum mask also has a string of actual ''ikiele'' beads of coral wrapped around its forehead. These red beads and red cloth, once reserved for leadership figures, have in modern times been popularly adopted as elements of Edo traditional dress. Uniben culture day 2

The foreheads of both masks were are inscribed with four vertical cicatrices over each eye, with inlays of a pair of iron strips highlighting the

. Iron is also used in the pupils and rims of the eyes.

Trade symbolism

Detail of Portuguese merchant and mudfish from crown of Met's Queen Mother Pendant Mask- Iyoba (cropped)

Ivory, both then and now, connotes royal wealth, power, and purity. Ivory, already a luxury commodity in Africa, became increasingly coveted with the growth of the European

ivory trade The ivory trade is the commercial, often illegal trade in the ivory tusks of the hippopotamus, walrus, narwhal, mammoth, and most commonly, African and Asian elephants. Ivory has been traded for hundreds of years by people in Africa and ...

. When an elephant was killed in Benin, the Oba received one tusk as a gift and was offered the other in sale. Thus, the Oba had many tusks and controlled the ivory trade. Ivory is associated with the

Edo Edo ( ja, , , "bay-entrance" or "estuary"), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a ''jōkamachi'' (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the ''de facto'' capital of ...

orisha of the sea,

Olokun Olokun (Yoruba: Olókun) is an orisha spirit in Yoruba religion. Olokun is believed to be the parent of Aje, the orisha of great wealth and of the bottom of the ocean. Olokun is revered as the ruler of all bodies of water and for the authority ...

. As this orisha gives wealth and fertility, it the spirit world's equivalent of the Benin Oba. Ivory gave wealth similar to Olokun, as it enticed the Portuguese merchants who, in turn, returned wealth to Benin. The Portuguese belonged to Olokun, having arrived from the sea. The whiteness of ivory also reflects the symbolism of white chalk, whose ritual purity is associated with Olokun. The

of the tiara and collar represent tiny heads of Portuguese men in the tiara of both the Met and the British Museum examples, with eleven figures in the British Museum mask, and in the Met mask seven figures of Portuguese men alternating with six representations of mudfish, the West African lungfish. The Portuguese, who had only recently arrived in the area, were a symbol of power and affluence to the royal court. Their iconography is identifiable by their long hair, hanging mustaches (often described as bearded), and domed hats. Benin art historian Barbara Blackmun interprets these crown adornments as a reference to Idia's ability to conduct the Portuguese power to her son's favor. Mudfish were a common theme in Benin royal arts, and reflected the divinity of the Oba. Edo cosmology believed that spirits crossed the ocean to reach the afterlife, where their leaders lived like gods. As creatures who could live on land and sea, the mudfish symbolized the

duality Duality may refer to: Mathematics * Duality (mathematics), a mathematical concept ** Dual (category theory), a formalization of mathematical duality ** Duality (optimization) ** Duality (order theory), a concept regarding binary relations ** Dual ...

needed for the leader's final journey, and this duality represents the seafaring Portuguese as well. The mudfish also appear in a pattern on the Linden Museum mask's crown, while the private collection mask's crown has bird elements, also formerly present on the similar Seattle Art Museum mask. The masks also differ in pattern along their bottom, collar edges. The collar of the Met example is similarly decorated with eleven Portuguese men (with damage on its proper right side), while the collar of the British Museum mask is instead an abstract guilloché

latticework __NOTOC__ Latticework is an openwork framework consisting of a criss-crossed pattern of strips of building material, typically wood or metal. The design is created by crossing the strips to form a grid or weave. Latticework may be functional &n ...

Provenance

During the 1897 punitive Benin Expedition, the British looted a group of similar ivory masks in the Oba's palace bedroom. The expedition's civil leader Ralph Moor took the two finest masks, which were later collected by British anthropologist Charles Gabriel Seligman and transferred to the London Museum of Mankind (now the

) and the New York

Museum of Primitive Art The Museum of Primitive Art is a now defunct museum devoted to the early arts of the indigenous cultures of Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania. It was founded in 1954 by Nelson Rockefeller, who donated his own collection of Tribal ...

(now the

). Two additional masks from the bedchamber group were taken by the British and now reside in the collections of the

(formerly Principal Medical Officer Robert Allman) and the Linden Museum in Stuttgart (formerly

W. D. Webster William Downing Webster (11 May 1868 – 14 January 1913) was a British ethnographic dealer and collector, best known for his collection gathered from material seized by British troops during the Benin Expedition of 1897. Life Webster was bo ...

and then Augustus Pitt Rivers), and there is one in a private collection of the heirs of Henry Galway. Five to six masks of this type were found in a large chest in 1897 in the bedchamber of the then-reigning Oba Ovonramwen, the ruler at the Benin court. They were taken at a time of great civil unrest during the British punitive Benin Expedition of 1897, the British burned the royal palaces of the Oba and the Queen Mother and looted thousands of ivory, brass and wood artworks from the ancestral altars, private quarters and storerooms and many were sold in England to western museums and collectors to offset the cost of the expedition. The British Museum's pendant was purchased in 1910 from the British anthropologist Prof Charles Gabriel Seligman.British Museum Collection
British Museum, retrieved 1 November 2014 The Met's mask was acquired in 1972 as a gift of

Nelson Rockefeller Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller (July 8, 1908 – January 26, 1979), sometimes referred to by his nickname Rocky, was an American businessman and politician who served as the 41st vice president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. A member of t ...

. He founded the

in 1954 after the Metropolitan Museum did not reciprocate his interest in

Precolumbian art Pre-Columbian art refers to the visual arts of indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, North, Central, and South Americas from at least 13,000 BCE to the European conquests starting in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The Pre-Columbian era c ...

. The museum collected works for their artistic—and not anthropological—value, contrasting with the earlier history of

African art in Western collections Some African objects had been collected by Europeans for centuries, and there had been industries producing some types, especially carvings in ivory, for European markets in some coastal regions. Between 1890 and 1918 the volume of objects greatly ...

. The

Queens College Queens College (QC) is a public college in the Queens borough of New York City. It is part of the City University of New York system. Its 80-acre campus is primarily located in Flushing, Queens. It has a student body representing more than 170 ...

art historian

Robert Goldwater Robert Goldwater (November 23, 1907 – March 26, 1973) was an art historian, African arts scholar and the first director of the Museum of Primitive Art, New York, from 1957 to 1973. He was married to the French-born American artist and scul ...

became its director and recommended acquisitions. His argument to collect the ivory pendant mask was among his longest, at the end of 1957. He called it "the best object of its kind known, nor will any others ever turn up". Goldwater wrote that the mask was higher in quality than the similar, renowned one owned by the British Museum. The mask, he predicted, would redefine the collection and go on permanent display, on par with the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, ...

's well-known ''

Sleeping Gypsy ''The Sleeping Gypsy'' (French: ''La Bohémienne endormie'') is an 1897 oil painting by French Naïve artist Henri Rousseau (1844–1910). It is a fantastical depiction of a lion musing over a sleeping woman on a moonlit night. Rousseau first ...

'' (1897) by

Henri Rousseau Henri Julien Félix Rousseau (; 21 May 1844 – 2 September 1910)
at the masterworks.

Legacy

Festac '77 Grand Durbar (22173986028) (cropped) 1

The Benin Pendant Mask has become an iconic image of Benin art, and the

version in particular was featured on Nigerian one Naira banknotes in 1973,The wealth of Africa
British Museum, retrieved 1 November 2014 and was chosen as the official emblem of the pan-Africanist FESTAC 77 cultural festival in 1977, so that this design is often known in modern Nigeria as the FESTAC Mask. The Nigerian government was unsuccessful in securing a loan of the work from the British Museum, and commissioned Edo artist Erhabor Emokpae to recreate the mask as a 20-foot tall bronze centerpiece for the festival (on display at the National Arts Theatre since 1979). He also designed a FESTAC flag with the mask as central charge on an unequally banded black-gold-black vertical tricolor, and being responsible for the event's extensive graphic design. Another Edo artist,

Felix Idubor Felix Idubor (1928–1991) was a Nigerian sculptor from Benin City, a city with a rich history of artistic excellence. He was part of a young group of artists in the 1950s and 1960s who raised awareness of the artistic consciousness of African tra ...

, was commissioned to carve two replica masks in ivory for the

Nigerian National Museum The Nigerian National Museum is a national museum of Nigeria, located in the city of Lagos. The museum has a notable collection of Nigerian art, including pieces of statuary, carvings also archaeological and ethnographic exhibits. Of note is ...

. A 150 kg bronze reproduction was also donated to UNESCO in 2005. The Met's Queen Mother pendant mask is considered among the museum's most celebrated works. African art historian Ezio Bassani wrote that the profile of the Met's mask was "at once delicate and strong" with a "musical rhythm", and that its use of iron and copper inlay was both "discreet and functional". He wrote that the Metropolitan and British Museum masks were among the most beautiful ivories carved in Benin, and that their artist was both refined and sensitive. Kate Ezra wrote that the mask's thinness showcased the "sensitivity and solemnity" of early Benin art.

Notes

References

* * * * *

External links

Mask in the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection

Mask in the British Museum collection
{{Authority control African sculptures in the British Museum Sculptures of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Ethnographic objects in the British Museum Ivory works of art Masks in Africa African queen mothers Ritual masks Sculptures of women Seattle Art Museum Cultural depictions of queens Benin Court Art