A bronze head - Ife - Nigeria
05
days
08
hours
03
minutes
52
seconds
Current bid
€ 400
Reserve price not met
Expert
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 € 2,700 - € 3,000
23 other people are watching this object
 | €400 | |
|---|---|---|
| €250 |
Catawiki Buyer Protection
Your payment’s safe with us until you receive your object.View details
Trustpilot 4.4 | 131620 reviews
Rated Excellent on Trustpilot.
Bronze head titled 'A bronze head', originating from Nigeria and linked to the Ife (Ile-Ife) Yoruba tradition, weighing 3.9 kg and about 40 cm high, in fair condition and sold without a stand.
AI-assisted summary
Description from the seller
This so-called crowned head of Lajuwa belongs to the corpus of sculptural works produced in Ile-Ife, the sacred center of the Yoruba world and a major artistic hub between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. Please note that this piece attribution is provided for reference only if there is no laboratory tests or certificates.Associated with the broader tradition commonly referred to as the Ife art tradition, the head exemplifies a refined naturalism that has long attracted scholarly attention for its technical sophistication and conceptual depth. The identification of the figure as Lajuwa derives from Yoruba oral traditions, in which Lajuwa appears as a politically and ritually significant individual, sometimes described as a palace official linked to the cult of Olokun, and in other accounts as a figure who temporarily assumed royal authority. Such narrative ambiguity is typical of the ways in which memory, ritual status, and political history intersect in Yoruba historiography.
Formally, the head demonstrates the characteristic balance in Ife sculpture between idealization and individualized representation. The face is rendered with smooth, controlled modeling, displaying proportional coherence and a composed, introspective expression. The emphasis on the head reflects the centrality of the concept of ori in Yoruba thought, wherein the head is understood not merely as a physical locus but as the seat of destiny, consciousness, and spiritual authority. The presence of a crown or elaborately beaded headdress situates the figure within a sphere of elevated status, invoking associations with sacred kingship and the institutional authority of the Ooni. The regalia is not simply decorative but encodes political legitimacy and cosmological alignment, underscoring the interdependence of governance and ritual power.
Technically, works of this type are often produced in copper alloy through the lost-wax casting method, which allows for a high degree of detail and surface refinement. The precision evident in the modeling of facial features and regalia attests to a well-developed metallurgical tradition and to specialized workshop practices within Ife. Such objects are frequently discussed alongside the celebrated Bronze Head from Ife, discovered in the twentieth century, which played a pivotal role in reshaping global perceptions of African art by demonstrating the existence of a long-standing, indigenous tradition of naturalistic representation.
Within an art-historical framework, the crowned head of Lajuwa may be understood as both a portrait and a ritual object, operating at the intersection of commemoration, political symbolism, and spiritual mediation. Its aesthetic restraint, coupled with the density of its cultural references, exemplifies the intellectual and artistic achievements of medieval Yoruba society. At the same time, the work invites reflection on the ways in which identity is constructed and remembered, not as a fixed historical record but as a dynamic interplay of narrative, status, and sacred meaning. In absence of laboratory tests, this piece attribution is provided for reference only, based on our knowledge and experience in the field.
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.
This so-called crowned head of Lajuwa belongs to the corpus of sculptural works produced in Ile-Ife, the sacred center of the Yoruba world and a major artistic hub between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. Please note that this piece attribution is provided for reference only if there is no laboratory tests or certificates.Associated with the broader tradition commonly referred to as the Ife art tradition, the head exemplifies a refined naturalism that has long attracted scholarly attention for its technical sophistication and conceptual depth. The identification of the figure as Lajuwa derives from Yoruba oral traditions, in which Lajuwa appears as a politically and ritually significant individual, sometimes described as a palace official linked to the cult of Olokun, and in other accounts as a figure who temporarily assumed royal authority. Such narrative ambiguity is typical of the ways in which memory, ritual status, and political history intersect in Yoruba historiography.
Formally, the head demonstrates the characteristic balance in Ife sculpture between idealization and individualized representation. The face is rendered with smooth, controlled modeling, displaying proportional coherence and a composed, introspective expression. The emphasis on the head reflects the centrality of the concept of ori in Yoruba thought, wherein the head is understood not merely as a physical locus but as the seat of destiny, consciousness, and spiritual authority. The presence of a crown or elaborately beaded headdress situates the figure within a sphere of elevated status, invoking associations with sacred kingship and the institutional authority of the Ooni. The regalia is not simply decorative but encodes political legitimacy and cosmological alignment, underscoring the interdependence of governance and ritual power.
Technically, works of this type are often produced in copper alloy through the lost-wax casting method, which allows for a high degree of detail and surface refinement. The precision evident in the modeling of facial features and regalia attests to a well-developed metallurgical tradition and to specialized workshop practices within Ife. Such objects are frequently discussed alongside the celebrated Bronze Head from Ife, discovered in the twentieth century, which played a pivotal role in reshaping global perceptions of African art by demonstrating the existence of a long-standing, indigenous tradition of naturalistic representation.
Within an art-historical framework, the crowned head of Lajuwa may be understood as both a portrait and a ritual object, operating at the intersection of commemoration, political symbolism, and spiritual mediation. Its aesthetic restraint, coupled with the density of its cultural references, exemplifies the intellectual and artistic achievements of medieval Yoruba society. At the same time, the work invites reflection on the ways in which identity is constructed and remembered, not as a fixed historical record but as a dynamic interplay of narrative, status, and sacred meaning. In absence of laboratory tests, this piece attribution is provided for reference only, based on our knowledge and experience in the field.
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
Ethnic group/ culture
Ife
Country of Origin
Nigeria
Material
Bronze
Sold with stand
No
Condition
Fair condition
Title of artwork
A bronze head
Height
40 cm
Weight
3.9 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
AGB des Verkäufers. Mit einem Gebot auf dieses Los akzeptieren Sie ebenfalls die AGB des Verkäufers.
Widerrufsbelehrung
- Frist: 14 Tage sowie gemäß den hier angegebenen Bedingungen
- Rücksendkosten: Käufer trägt die unmittelbaren Kosten der Rücksendung der Ware
- Vollständige Widerrufsbelehrung
