A iron sculpture - Vere - Nigeria (No reserve price)
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Selected by Dimitri André
Holds a postgraduate degree in African studies and 15 years experience in African art.
Estimate € 280 - € 350
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“A iron sculpture” is an original wrought-iron anthropomorphic figure associated with Vere culture, from Gembu on Nigeria’s Mambilla Plateau.
AI-assisted summary
Description from the seller
Anthropomorphic wrought-iron figure with suspended sound elements
Cultural attribution: Vere (Verre)
Origin: Gembu, Mambilla Plateau, Taraba State, Nigeria
Materials: Wrought iron, rust-brown patina, incl stand.
Technique: Forging, hammering, and assembly of metal parts
Date: Undetermined
Description
This iron sculpture depicts a standing anthropomorphic figure, characterized by a slender silhouette and geometric construction. The head, small and flattened, features a schematic face with deep-set circular eyes, a subtle nose, and an incised mouth. It rests on a particularly long neck, extended by a narrow torso consisting of a vertical metal rod. The arms, shaped like curved arcs, form two lateral loops from which several movable iron pieces hang. These pieces come in various shapes, resembling leaves, widened paddles, and curved tabs. Some end in small spiral coils. The legs form an open arch and extend into two flattened feet. The entire piece has an irregular, heavily oxidized surface in shades of ochre and reddish-brown. Signs of corrosion highlight the joints and traces of metalworking. The black base is part of the current museum display.
Historical and Artistic Analysis
This work can be linked to the metallurgical traditions of Adamawa and the Upper Benue Valley, where blacksmiths developed ceremonial objects combining human figures and sound-producing elements. The sculptural composition is based on a remarkable economy of means: a central rod forms the body, while curved metal elements define the arms and legs. The layering of the suspended elements introduces a dynamic dimension to this essentially linear structure. Ritual iron rattles, consisting of rings bearing metal blades or clappers, have been documented among the Vere and the Chamba. This technical and formal similarity provides an important point of comparison, though it does not prove exclusive attribution to either of these groups.
Iconography
The iconography combines a stylized human figure with suspended metal elements. The face, reduced to a few essential features, emphasizes symbolic presence rather than individual identification. The frontal orientation of the composition and the elongated neck accentuate its verticality. The large side plates may resemble leaves or iron tools, but their precise meaning remains unknown. The combination of an anthropomorphic representation and movable parts suggests an object whose visual dimension could have been complemented by a sound-producing function. However, no attributes allow for the certain identification of a specific ancestor, deity, or figure.
Historical and Artistic Assessment
The aesthetic appeal of this sculpture lies in the combination of human figuration, geometric abstraction, and movement. The slenderness of the body contrasts with the expansiveness of the lateral wings. The curves of the limbs organize empty spaces that play a full part in the composition. The variety of suspended elements creates an asymmetrical visual rhythm, while the head, positioned at the top, serves as the primary focal point. This construction reveals a masterful command of wrought iron, transformed into sculpture without resorting to detailed anatomical modeling.
Cultural Context
The Vere, also known as the Verre, live primarily in the mountainous regions of Adamawa, near the border between Nigeria and Cameroon. Their history is linked to that of neighboring peoples, notably the Chamba, the Bata, and the Koma, with whom they maintained commercial and cultural ties. Blacksmiths held an important position in these societies. Their craftsmanship encompassed agricultural tools as well as prestige objects and ceremonial instruments. Gembu, however, is located on the Mambilla Plateau, which is distinct from the main Vere territory. This location should therefore be considered an indication of provenance, rather than evidence of cultural attribution.
Ritual Use
In several societies of the Bénoué region, metal rattles accompanied ceremonial activities, particularly certain healing practices and gatherings of ritual associations. The movement of the suspended pieces could produce metallic sounds intended to mark the progression of a ceremony or to signal a ritual presence. Comparable objects have been documented among the Chamba, while research on the Vere also attests to the use of iron percussion instruments in their religious traditions. For this sculpture, therefore, a function as a ceremonial rattle is a plausible hypothesis. However, the lack of information regarding the context of its discovery makes it impossible to specify the ritual, the users, or the circumstances of its use.
Historical Significance in Art
This work illustrates the role of iron in the artistic traditions of Central and West Africa. It reflects an artistic vision in which the human form, the technique of forging, and the acoustic properties of metal can be united within a single object. Its originality lies in the transformation of functional pieces into an expressive anthropomorphic composition. It also serves as a reminder that metallurgical productions from Adamawa are part of an artistic history shaped by exchanges between communities, rather than by entirely isolated ethnic styles.
Bibliography — References
Chappel, Tim; Fardon, Richard; Piepel, Klaus. "Surviving Works: Context in Verre Arts." Vestiges: Traces of Record, vol. 7, no. 1, 2021, pp. 4–410.
Berns, Marla C.; Fardon, Richard; Kasfir, Sidney Littlefield (eds.). Central Nigeria Unmasked: Arts of the Benue River Valley. Los Angeles: Fowler Museum at UCLA, 2011.
Meek, Charles Kingsley. Tribal Studies in Northern Nigeria. 2 volumes. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1931.
Fardon, Richard. Between God, the Dead and the Wild: Chamba Interpretations of Ritual and Religion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990.
Brincard, Marie-Thérèse (ed.). The Art of Metal in Africa. New York: African-American Institute, 1982.
Copyright and Scientific Documentation
Some of the information and photographs have been generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence and are based on published sources in ethnography, archaeology, and art history. Original texts and photographs may be protected by copyright. All rights held by the respective rights holders are reserved.
Informant Amadou Dogo
Inv. No. MAZ34961
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.
------------
Galerie Wolfgang Jaenicke is a Berlin-based gallery specializing in West African sculpture, bronzes, terracottas, masks, and contemporary African art. It is directed by Wolfgang Jaenicke, whose work combines collecting, dealing, provenance research, fieldwork, and archival documentation.
According to the gallery’s own account, Jaenicke studied ethnology, art history, and comparative law and has worked in the field of African art for more than twenty-five years. His activities developed through long-term engagement in countries including Mali, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Togo. Rather than presenting African art as a closed historical category, he describes it as a continuing cultural tradition shaped by living communities and changing historical contexts.
A particularly important phase of his career was in Mali, where he lived and worked between roughly 2002 and 2012 in Bamako and Ségou. There he operated Tribalartforum, a gallery that combined historical African sculpture with contemporary African photography, including works by Malick Sidibé. The political and military crisis in Mali in 2012 led to the closure of this phase of activity.
Later, together with Aguibou Kamaté, Jaenicke continued working from Lomé, Togo, before establishing a gallery presence in Berlin near Charlottenburg Palace. The gallery places particular emphasis on West African bronzes, terracottas, Benin and Ife-related works, Nok sculpture, Dogon art, Baule sculpture, Senufo objects, and Yoruba material.
One distinctive aspect of Jaenicke’s public position is his repeated emphasis on provenance transparency and restitution debates. On several published object records, the gallery explicitly discusses issues surrounding export documentation, UNESCO conventions, ownership histories, and communication with scholars and restitution researchers. These statements reflect broader contemporary debates about the circulation of African cultural heritage, legality, collecting history, and museum acquisition practices.
The gallery maintains extensive online archives and catalogues documenting hundreds of African objects, including Benin and Ife bronzes, Nok terracottas, Dogon sculptures, Baule figures, Fon objects, Moba figures, and other West African material.
For researchers interested in the history of the African art trade, Jaenicke represents a later generation of dealers compared with figures such as John J. Klejman. Whereas Klejman belonged to the postwar New York market of the 1950s–1970s, Jaenicke’s work has been shaped by contemporary concerns with field documentation, provenance research, restitution discussions, digital archives, and direct engagement with West African networks and artists.
This text is based on AI Information
Anthropomorphic wrought-iron figure with suspended sound elements
Cultural attribution: Vere (Verre)
Origin: Gembu, Mambilla Plateau, Taraba State, Nigeria
Materials: Wrought iron, rust-brown patina, incl stand.
Technique: Forging, hammering, and assembly of metal parts
Date: Undetermined
Description
This iron sculpture depicts a standing anthropomorphic figure, characterized by a slender silhouette and geometric construction. The head, small and flattened, features a schematic face with deep-set circular eyes, a subtle nose, and an incised mouth. It rests on a particularly long neck, extended by a narrow torso consisting of a vertical metal rod. The arms, shaped like curved arcs, form two lateral loops from which several movable iron pieces hang. These pieces come in various shapes, resembling leaves, widened paddles, and curved tabs. Some end in small spiral coils. The legs form an open arch and extend into two flattened feet. The entire piece has an irregular, heavily oxidized surface in shades of ochre and reddish-brown. Signs of corrosion highlight the joints and traces of metalworking. The black base is part of the current museum display.
Historical and Artistic Analysis
This work can be linked to the metallurgical traditions of Adamawa and the Upper Benue Valley, where blacksmiths developed ceremonial objects combining human figures and sound-producing elements. The sculptural composition is based on a remarkable economy of means: a central rod forms the body, while curved metal elements define the arms and legs. The layering of the suspended elements introduces a dynamic dimension to this essentially linear structure. Ritual iron rattles, consisting of rings bearing metal blades or clappers, have been documented among the Vere and the Chamba. This technical and formal similarity provides an important point of comparison, though it does not prove exclusive attribution to either of these groups.
Iconography
The iconography combines a stylized human figure with suspended metal elements. The face, reduced to a few essential features, emphasizes symbolic presence rather than individual identification. The frontal orientation of the composition and the elongated neck accentuate its verticality. The large side plates may resemble leaves or iron tools, but their precise meaning remains unknown. The combination of an anthropomorphic representation and movable parts suggests an object whose visual dimension could have been complemented by a sound-producing function. However, no attributes allow for the certain identification of a specific ancestor, deity, or figure.
Historical and Artistic Assessment
The aesthetic appeal of this sculpture lies in the combination of human figuration, geometric abstraction, and movement. The slenderness of the body contrasts with the expansiveness of the lateral wings. The curves of the limbs organize empty spaces that play a full part in the composition. The variety of suspended elements creates an asymmetrical visual rhythm, while the head, positioned at the top, serves as the primary focal point. This construction reveals a masterful command of wrought iron, transformed into sculpture without resorting to detailed anatomical modeling.
Cultural Context
The Vere, also known as the Verre, live primarily in the mountainous regions of Adamawa, near the border between Nigeria and Cameroon. Their history is linked to that of neighboring peoples, notably the Chamba, the Bata, and the Koma, with whom they maintained commercial and cultural ties. Blacksmiths held an important position in these societies. Their craftsmanship encompassed agricultural tools as well as prestige objects and ceremonial instruments. Gembu, however, is located on the Mambilla Plateau, which is distinct from the main Vere territory. This location should therefore be considered an indication of provenance, rather than evidence of cultural attribution.
Ritual Use
In several societies of the Bénoué region, metal rattles accompanied ceremonial activities, particularly certain healing practices and gatherings of ritual associations. The movement of the suspended pieces could produce metallic sounds intended to mark the progression of a ceremony or to signal a ritual presence. Comparable objects have been documented among the Chamba, while research on the Vere also attests to the use of iron percussion instruments in their religious traditions. For this sculpture, therefore, a function as a ceremonial rattle is a plausible hypothesis. However, the lack of information regarding the context of its discovery makes it impossible to specify the ritual, the users, or the circumstances of its use.
Historical Significance in Art
This work illustrates the role of iron in the artistic traditions of Central and West Africa. It reflects an artistic vision in which the human form, the technique of forging, and the acoustic properties of metal can be united within a single object. Its originality lies in the transformation of functional pieces into an expressive anthropomorphic composition. It also serves as a reminder that metallurgical productions from Adamawa are part of an artistic history shaped by exchanges between communities, rather than by entirely isolated ethnic styles.
Bibliography — References
Chappel, Tim; Fardon, Richard; Piepel, Klaus. "Surviving Works: Context in Verre Arts." Vestiges: Traces of Record, vol. 7, no. 1, 2021, pp. 4–410.
Berns, Marla C.; Fardon, Richard; Kasfir, Sidney Littlefield (eds.). Central Nigeria Unmasked: Arts of the Benue River Valley. Los Angeles: Fowler Museum at UCLA, 2011.
Meek, Charles Kingsley. Tribal Studies in Northern Nigeria. 2 volumes. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1931.
Fardon, Richard. Between God, the Dead and the Wild: Chamba Interpretations of Ritual and Religion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990.
Brincard, Marie-Thérèse (ed.). The Art of Metal in Africa. New York: African-American Institute, 1982.
Copyright and Scientific Documentation
Some of the information and photographs have been generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence and are based on published sources in ethnography, archaeology, and art history. Original texts and photographs may be protected by copyright. All rights held by the respective rights holders are reserved.
Informant Amadou Dogo
Inv. No. MAZ34961
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.
------------
Galerie Wolfgang Jaenicke is a Berlin-based gallery specializing in West African sculpture, bronzes, terracottas, masks, and contemporary African art. It is directed by Wolfgang Jaenicke, whose work combines collecting, dealing, provenance research, fieldwork, and archival documentation.
According to the gallery’s own account, Jaenicke studied ethnology, art history, and comparative law and has worked in the field of African art for more than twenty-five years. His activities developed through long-term engagement in countries including Mali, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Togo. Rather than presenting African art as a closed historical category, he describes it as a continuing cultural tradition shaped by living communities and changing historical contexts.
A particularly important phase of his career was in Mali, where he lived and worked between roughly 2002 and 2012 in Bamako and Ségou. There he operated Tribalartforum, a gallery that combined historical African sculpture with contemporary African photography, including works by Malick Sidibé. The political and military crisis in Mali in 2012 led to the closure of this phase of activity.
Later, together with Aguibou Kamaté, Jaenicke continued working from Lomé, Togo, before establishing a gallery presence in Berlin near Charlottenburg Palace. The gallery places particular emphasis on West African bronzes, terracottas, Benin and Ife-related works, Nok sculpture, Dogon art, Baule sculpture, Senufo objects, and Yoruba material.
One distinctive aspect of Jaenicke’s public position is his repeated emphasis on provenance transparency and restitution debates. On several published object records, the gallery explicitly discusses issues surrounding export documentation, UNESCO conventions, ownership histories, and communication with scholars and restitution researchers. These statements reflect broader contemporary debates about the circulation of African cultural heritage, legality, collecting history, and museum acquisition practices.
The gallery maintains extensive online archives and catalogues documenting hundreds of African objects, including Benin and Ife bronzes, Nok terracottas, Dogon sculptures, Baule figures, Fon objects, Moba figures, and other West African material.
For researchers interested in the history of the African art trade, Jaenicke represents a later generation of dealers compared with figures such as John J. Klejman. Whereas Klejman belonged to the postwar New York market of the 1950s–1970s, Jaenicke’s work has been shaped by contemporary concerns with field documentation, provenance research, restitution discussions, digital archives, and direct engagement with West African networks and artists.
This text is based on AI Information
Details
Ethnic group/ culture
Vere
Country of Origin
Nigeria
Material
Black Iron
Sold with stand
Yes
Condition
Fair condition
Title of artwork
A iron sculpture
Height
38 cm
Weight
1.3 kg
Authenticity
Original/official
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
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