Chef's Statue - Abomey - Benin (No reserve price)

Magnificent terracotta statue representing a chief of the kingdom of Abomey in Benin, in the style of Yesufu Asogba’s sculptures.
As in many African kingdoms, the king is considered a sacred being. His person is invested with cosmic energies, often perceived as of divine origin, since dynastic genealogies frequently link the royal lineage to a founding divine ancestor. Guardian of the well-being of the kingdom, of the prosperity of his subjects and of the world’s balance, he occupies a central place in the political and spiritual organization.
The sovereign ensured the means of subsistence and the comfort of the great court artist families by granting them housing, arable land, labor, wives as well as regular gifts constituting their main source of income. In return, the works produced by these artists were meant to evoke an emotion and to produce an effective symbolic effect, both in private spaces and during their presentation at the court or during official ceremonies.
Artists were generally regarded as the (the "children of the king"). However, some exceptions existed: Yémadjé was assimilated to a wife of the king, while Hountondji was recognized as his brother, bearing the title ahononvi. In Abomey, while the royal person remains at the heart of political and religious life, the artist plays a fundamental role in ensuring the link between the different populations that make up the kingdom.
The royal workshops gathered artists from diverse communities, including Fon, Mahi, Bariba, Hausa and Nago-Yoruba. The Nago-Yoruba, whose representatives of the first generation were often prisoners of war, were particularly distinguished in wood sculpture, sometimes on ivory, as well as in the art of beadwork. The Nago sculptors notably crafted the pillars of the royal palaces and the divinatory instruments of the Fa.