A bronze head - Ife - Benin - Nigeria
01
day
15
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38
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Current bid
€ 600
Reserve price not met
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Selected by Julien Gauthier
With almost a decade of experience bridging science, museum curation, and traditional blacksmithing, Julien has developed a unique expertise in historical arms, armour, and African art.
Estimate € 1,800 - € 2,000
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A bronze head from Nigeria, in Ife style, associated with the Benin cultural group.
AI-assisted summary
Description from the seller
A bronze head in Ife style.
Politische und religiöse Bedeutung
Die Bronzen erfüllten nicht nur ästhetische Zwecke, sondern waren zentrale Instrumente königlicher Legitimation. Sie wurden in Palastanlagen oder Schreinen aufbewahrt und dienten der Verehrung der Ahnen. Durch diese Praxis wurde die Verbindung zwischen dem lebenden Ooni und seinen Vorgängern symbolisiert. Drewal et al. (1989) betonen, dass die Verehrung der Ahnen in Kombination mit der künstlerischen Realistik der Köpfe die kontinuierliche Macht und göttliche Legitimität des Ooni sicherte.
Archäologische Untersuchungen, wie sie Ekpo (1965) dokumentiert, belegen zudem, dass die Köpfe häufig in Palastnähe gefunden wurden, was ihren exklusiven königlichen Kontext unterstreicht. Die Kombination von Realismus, Scarification und Ade macht die Ife-Bronzen zu einem einzigartigen Ausdruck politischer Theologie und dynastischer Kontinuität.
Schlussbetrachtung
Die Ife-Bronzen sind mehr als Kunstwerke: Sie sind Ausdruck einer hochentwickelten Zivilisation, in der Ästhetik, Politik und Religion eng miteinander verflochten waren. Die systematische Darstellung individueller Gesichtszüge, die symbolträchtigen Scarifications und die gekrönten Headdresses machen deutlich, dass diese Bronzen primär die Ooni repräsentieren. Sie fungierten als sakrale Porträts, die die dynastische Linie bewahrten und den Herrschaftsanspruch des lebenden Ooni legitimierten.
In der Gesamtschau verdeutlichen die Ife-Bronzen die hohe technische und künstlerische Kompetenz der Yoruba und die zentrale Rolle des Ooni in der sozialen und spirituellen Ordnung von Ife. Sie bleiben ein unverzichtbares Zeugnis für die Verbindung von Kunst, Herrschaft und Ahnenkult in Westafrika.
"I believe that the import of all art objects from Africa—whether copies or originals—should be prohibited to protect Africa." Quote: Prof. Dr. Viola König, former director of the Ethnological Museum of Berlin, now HUMBOLDTFORUM
Legal Framework
Under the 1970 UNESCO Convention in combination with the Kulturgutschutz Gesetz (KGSG) any claim for the restitution of cultural property becomes time-barred three years after the competent authorities of the State of origin obtain knowledge of the object’s location and the identity of its possessor.
All bronzes and terracotta items offered have been publicly exhibited in Wolfgang Jaenicke Gallery since 2001. Organisations such as DIGITAL BENIN and academic institutions such as the Technical University of Berlin, which have been intensively involved in restitution-reseaches (translocation-project) over the past seven years, are aware of our work, have inspected large parts of our collection and have visited us in our dependance in Lomé, Togo, among other places, to learn about the international Art trade on site. Furthermore, the National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM) in Abuja, Nigeria, has been informed about our collection. In no case in the past have there been restitution claims against private institutions such as the Wolfgang Jaenicke Gallery
Our Gallery addresses these structural challenges through a policy of maximum transparency and documentation. Should any questions or uncertainties arise, we invite you to contact us. Each matter will be reviewed diligently using all available resources.
Literatur
Barber, Karin (1991). Ife and the Yoruba: The Bronze Heads and Royal Authority. African Arts, Vol. 24, No. 3, pp. 38–49.
Drewal, Henry John, John Pemberton & Rowland Abiodun (1989). Yoruba: Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought. New York: Center for African Art.
Ekpo, Eyo (1965). Ife: The Excavations at the Royal Palace Sites. Lagos: Federal Department of Antiquities.
Fagg, William (1963). Nigerian Images: Ife, Benin, Nok. London: British Museum.
Miller, Christine (2015). Ife and the Yoruba Royal Tradition. Cambridge University Press.
Pemberton, John (1975). The Ife Head in Context: An Iconographic Analysis. African Arts, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 20–31.
CAB31197
Seller's Story
Wolfgang Jaenicke’s engagement with African art did not begin in the field or the marketplace but in a quieter, more inward space—among papers, books, and objects that belonged to his father. The archive on Germany’s former colonies was not arranged to tell a single story; it suggested many. It invited scrutiny rather than reverence, and it taught Jaenicke early on that objects are never mute. They carry time inside them—fracture and continuity held in the same form—and they ask to be read as carefully as texts.
For more than a quarter century, Jaenicke has worked as a collector, dealer, and intermediary, though none of these terms quite captures the shape of his practice. What used to be grouped, too casually, under the heading of “Tribal Art” has never appeared to him as a sealed or historical category. It is, instead, a set of living traditions, constantly negotiating the present. His academic training—in ethnology, art history, and comparative law—provided a grammar. The language itself he learned elsewhere. In Mali, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Togo, and Ghana, knowledge emerged slowly, through repeated encounters that hardened into relationships, and through trust built not all at once but over years.
Mali became the gravitational center of this experience. Between 2002 and 2012, Jaenicke lived and worked in Bamako and Ségou, where he ran Tribalartforum, a gallery overlooking the Niger River. The space resisted easy chronology. Sculptures and ceramics shared the room with photography, and works by Malick Sidibé—images of Malian youth in the 1970s, self-assured and exuberant—hung alongside older ritual forms. The effect was not nostalgic but clarifying: past and present did not cancel each other out; they sharpened one another.
The war of 2012 ended this chapter abruptly, as wars tend to do. But it did not dissolve the work. Together with Aguibou Kamaté, Jaenicke regrouped in Lomé, closer to the places where many of the objects originated and to the routes they continue to travel. Since 2018, Berlin has become another point on this map. Galerie Wolfgang Jaenicke now operates opposite Charlottenburg Palace, supported by a small team of specialists. Its focus rests, in particular, on West African bronzes and terracottas—materials shaped by earth and fire, and by forms of memory that resist easy translation.
What distinguishes Jaenicke’s practice is not only its geographical range but its internal tension. Fieldwork is paired with provenance research; commerce is treated as inseparable from responsibility. In collaboration with museums and scholarly initiatives, circulation is framed not as extraction but as an ethical process that remains unfinished. The aim is not to remove objects from the world and seal them off, but to keep them readable within it—to allow them to continue speaking, even as the conditions of their speech change.
A bronze head in Ife style.
Politische und religiöse Bedeutung
Die Bronzen erfüllten nicht nur ästhetische Zwecke, sondern waren zentrale Instrumente königlicher Legitimation. Sie wurden in Palastanlagen oder Schreinen aufbewahrt und dienten der Verehrung der Ahnen. Durch diese Praxis wurde die Verbindung zwischen dem lebenden Ooni und seinen Vorgängern symbolisiert. Drewal et al. (1989) betonen, dass die Verehrung der Ahnen in Kombination mit der künstlerischen Realistik der Köpfe die kontinuierliche Macht und göttliche Legitimität des Ooni sicherte.
Archäologische Untersuchungen, wie sie Ekpo (1965) dokumentiert, belegen zudem, dass die Köpfe häufig in Palastnähe gefunden wurden, was ihren exklusiven königlichen Kontext unterstreicht. Die Kombination von Realismus, Scarification und Ade macht die Ife-Bronzen zu einem einzigartigen Ausdruck politischer Theologie und dynastischer Kontinuität.
Schlussbetrachtung
Die Ife-Bronzen sind mehr als Kunstwerke: Sie sind Ausdruck einer hochentwickelten Zivilisation, in der Ästhetik, Politik und Religion eng miteinander verflochten waren. Die systematische Darstellung individueller Gesichtszüge, die symbolträchtigen Scarifications und die gekrönten Headdresses machen deutlich, dass diese Bronzen primär die Ooni repräsentieren. Sie fungierten als sakrale Porträts, die die dynastische Linie bewahrten und den Herrschaftsanspruch des lebenden Ooni legitimierten.
In der Gesamtschau verdeutlichen die Ife-Bronzen die hohe technische und künstlerische Kompetenz der Yoruba und die zentrale Rolle des Ooni in der sozialen und spirituellen Ordnung von Ife. Sie bleiben ein unverzichtbares Zeugnis für die Verbindung von Kunst, Herrschaft und Ahnenkult in Westafrika.
"I believe that the import of all art objects from Africa—whether copies or originals—should be prohibited to protect Africa." Quote: Prof. Dr. Viola König, former director of the Ethnological Museum of Berlin, now HUMBOLDTFORUM
Legal Framework
Under the 1970 UNESCO Convention in combination with the Kulturgutschutz Gesetz (KGSG) any claim for the restitution of cultural property becomes time-barred three years after the competent authorities of the State of origin obtain knowledge of the object’s location and the identity of its possessor.
All bronzes and terracotta items offered have been publicly exhibited in Wolfgang Jaenicke Gallery since 2001. Organisations such as DIGITAL BENIN and academic institutions such as the Technical University of Berlin, which have been intensively involved in restitution-reseaches (translocation-project) over the past seven years, are aware of our work, have inspected large parts of our collection and have visited us in our dependance in Lomé, Togo, among other places, to learn about the international Art trade on site. Furthermore, the National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM) in Abuja, Nigeria, has been informed about our collection. In no case in the past have there been restitution claims against private institutions such as the Wolfgang Jaenicke Gallery
Our Gallery addresses these structural challenges through a policy of maximum transparency and documentation. Should any questions or uncertainties arise, we invite you to contact us. Each matter will be reviewed diligently using all available resources.
Literatur
Barber, Karin (1991). Ife and the Yoruba: The Bronze Heads and Royal Authority. African Arts, Vol. 24, No. 3, pp. 38–49.
Drewal, Henry John, John Pemberton & Rowland Abiodun (1989). Yoruba: Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought. New York: Center for African Art.
Ekpo, Eyo (1965). Ife: The Excavations at the Royal Palace Sites. Lagos: Federal Department of Antiquities.
Fagg, William (1963). Nigerian Images: Ife, Benin, Nok. London: British Museum.
Miller, Christine (2015). Ife and the Yoruba Royal Tradition. Cambridge University Press.
Pemberton, John (1975). The Ife Head in Context: An Iconographic Analysis. African Arts, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 20–31.
CAB31197
Seller's Story
Wolfgang Jaenicke’s engagement with African art did not begin in the field or the marketplace but in a quieter, more inward space—among papers, books, and objects that belonged to his father. The archive on Germany’s former colonies was not arranged to tell a single story; it suggested many. It invited scrutiny rather than reverence, and it taught Jaenicke early on that objects are never mute. They carry time inside them—fracture and continuity held in the same form—and they ask to be read as carefully as texts.
For more than a quarter century, Jaenicke has worked as a collector, dealer, and intermediary, though none of these terms quite captures the shape of his practice. What used to be grouped, too casually, under the heading of “Tribal Art” has never appeared to him as a sealed or historical category. It is, instead, a set of living traditions, constantly negotiating the present. His academic training—in ethnology, art history, and comparative law—provided a grammar. The language itself he learned elsewhere. In Mali, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Togo, and Ghana, knowledge emerged slowly, through repeated encounters that hardened into relationships, and through trust built not all at once but over years.
Mali became the gravitational center of this experience. Between 2002 and 2012, Jaenicke lived and worked in Bamako and Ségou, where he ran Tribalartforum, a gallery overlooking the Niger River. The space resisted easy chronology. Sculptures and ceramics shared the room with photography, and works by Malick Sidibé—images of Malian youth in the 1970s, self-assured and exuberant—hung alongside older ritual forms. The effect was not nostalgic but clarifying: past and present did not cancel each other out; they sharpened one another.
The war of 2012 ended this chapter abruptly, as wars tend to do. But it did not dissolve the work. Together with Aguibou Kamaté, Jaenicke regrouped in Lomé, closer to the places where many of the objects originated and to the routes they continue to travel. Since 2018, Berlin has become another point on this map. Galerie Wolfgang Jaenicke now operates opposite Charlottenburg Palace, supported by a small team of specialists. Its focus rests, in particular, on West African bronzes and terracottas—materials shaped by earth and fire, and by forms of memory that resist easy translation.
What distinguishes Jaenicke’s practice is not only its geographical range but its internal tension. Fieldwork is paired with provenance research; commerce is treated as inseparable from responsibility. In collaboration with museums and scholarly initiatives, circulation is framed not as extraction but as an ethical process that remains unfinished. The aim is not to remove objects from the world and seal them off, but to keep them readable within it—to allow them to continue speaking, even as the conditions of their speech change.
Details
Indigenous object name
Ife
Ethnic group/ culture
Benin
Country of Origin
Nigeria
Material
Bronze
Sold with stand
No
Condition
Fair condition
Title of artwork
A bronze head
Height
33 cm
Weight
2.9 kg
Sold by
GermanyVerified
protop
Rechtliche Informationen des Verkäufers
- Unternehmen:
- Jaenicke Njoya GmbH
- Repräsentant:
- Wolfgang Jaenicke
- Adresse:
- Jaenicke Njoya GmbH
Klausenerplatz 7
14059 Berlin
GERMANY - Telefonnummer:
- +493033951033
- Email:
- w.jaenicke@jaenicke-njoya.com
- USt-IdNr.:
- DE241193499
AGB
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Widerrufsbelehrung
- Frist: 14 Tage sowie gemäß den hier angegebenen Bedingungen
- Rücksendkosten: Käufer trägt die unmittelbaren Kosten der Rücksendung der Ware
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