Bronze Head from Ife (Object in Focus)

ISBN: 071412592X

Author: Platte, Edith

Condition: Used

Part of the British Museum's Objects in Focus series, this compact book offers a well illustrated guide to the crowned bronze head unearthed at Ife in Nigeria in 1938. It places the head in its historical and artistic context, and introduces the reader to the religious beliefs of the Yoruba and the possible meaning of the head. It also looks at the western and modern Nigerian response to the head and the naturalistic African art tradition it represents.

• Every purchase supports the British Museum | Believed to represent a king, the beautiful bronze head in the British Museum is one of seventeen objects unearthed in 1938-9 at the town of Ife in Nigeria | The stunning naturalism and sophisticated craftsmanship of the objects challenged Western perceptions of African art at the time, which were largely based around abstract wooden figures | It was consequently assumed at first that they must have been made by Europeans or under European influence | In time, however, they came to be seen as wholly African, probably dating from the twelfth to fourteenth centuries, and representative of a hitherto unknown artistic tradition on that continent