A bronze hip - Uhunmwu-Ẹkuẹ - Benin - Nigeria (No reserve price)
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€ 62
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Selected by Dimitri André
Holds a postgraduate degree in African studies and 15 years experience in African art.
Estimate € 450 - € 530
 | €62 | |
|---|---|---|
 | €59 | |
| €56 | |
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The bronze “A bronze hip” is a 16 cm Benin Uhunmwu-Ẹkuẹ from Nigeria, described as a Udo Style royal hip ornament and listed as a reproduction.
AI-assisted summary
Description from the seller
Royal Hip Ornament (Uhunmwu-Ẹkuẹ), so-called Udo Style,
Brass, cast by the lost-wax process, incl stand
Kingdom of Benin, Nigeria
Private Collection
This exceptional royal hip ornament (Uhunmwu-Ẹkuẹ) belongs to the highest-quality surviving works of the Benin court foundries. It represents the so-called Udo Style, a recognisable stylistic group within Benin court art, characterised by particularly powerful sculptural modelling, vibrant ornamentation, and a pronounced sense of spatial depth.
The face displays the idealised symmetry typical of royal representations, yet it is animated by a forceful plastic treatment and refined individual details. The almond-shaped eyes are deeply set beneath carefully engraved eyelids; two vertical scarification lines on the forehead are accompanied by finely incised eyebrows. The strongly modelled nose, slightly open mouth, and distinctive treatment of the lips lend the face a striking presence and an expression of inner tension.
A defining feature of this ornament is its exceptionally rich sculptural composition. Along the edges of the face run finely modelled snakes, whose curving bodies elegantly frame the composition. Beneath the mouth appear pairs of crocodiles, their stylised bodies forming the lower termination of the design. These animals are far more than decorative elements; they belong to the royal symbolic system of Benin and refer to protection, power, wisdom, and the Oba’s ability to control the various realms of the visible and invisible world.
Particularly impressive is the tall, openwork coral crown, elaborately constructed in relief. Above an ornamented crown band rises a richly articulated structure with openwork passages and finely modelled motifs, evoking the appearance of a royal crown originally covered with coral beads. At the centre rises a strongly twisted coral-like finial, whose sculptural effect is further enhanced by the open construction. This complex openwork technique ranks among the most technically demanding achievements of the Benin court foundries and demonstrates an extraordinary mastery of the lost-wax casting process.
Of particular appeal is the surface, which has developed over several centuries. Dark brown areas of the metal alternate with a finely evolved olive-green to light green noble patina, preserved especially in the recessed areas and along the sculptural ornaments. This natural ageing process gives the brass exceptional depth and allows the delicate relief structures to emerge with remarkable clarity.
Within Benin court art, several distinct stylistic traditions can be identified. While the famous hip ornaments of the classical Benin style – particularly the examples known as Idia masks – are characterised by calm surfaces, clear geometry, and an almost architectural restraint, the so-called Udo Style follows a distinctly more dynamic aesthetic principle. The faces display stronger sculptural modelling and greater spatial depth; the border ornamentation appears more animated and organic; animal representations are more elaborate and more closely integrated into the overall composition. This is further enhanced by elaborate, often openwork crowns with complex sculptural constructions. Whereas the classical Idia masks derive their impact primarily from the perfect balance of their proportions, works of the Udo Style achieve their particular fascination through the combination of royal monumentality with extraordinary decorative richness and sculptural abundance.
The term “Udo Style” should be understood as a modern art-historical working designation. It does not represent a historically documented stylistic term from the Kingdom of Benin itself, but rather serves to classify a group of closely related bronzes whose formal language differs noticeably from the classical court style. No contemporary name for this workshop or stylistic tradition is currently known. The term has become established primarily among Benin specialists, within international art dealing, and in collection research, although its precise definition has not yet been uniformly established in scholarly literature. Its use should therefore be understood as a modern typological classification rather than as a historically recorded designation.
This group of works nevertheless demonstrates convincingly that the Benin court foundries did not follow a rigid artistic canon. Rather, within royal art there existed a remarkable stylistic diversity, in which different workshops or artist groups developed their own formal characteristics while maintaining the iconographic and ceremonial functions of royal insignia. It is conceivable that the so-called Udo Style represents either an independent workshop tradition or a later developmental phase within the court foundries. Due to the incomplete historical record, however, this interpretation must remain an art-historical hypothesis.
Uhunmwu-Ẹkuẹ were not masks in the literal sense, but ceremonial hip ornaments of the Oba. They were worn attached to a belt during important court rituals and served as references to revered ancestors or distinguished members of the royal dynasty. The term “Hip Mask”, commonly used in Western literature, describes only the manner in which these objects were worn; the original designation preserved in Benin oral tradition is Uhunmwu-Ẹkuẹ.
The combination of supreme technical mastery in bronze casting, complex iconographic symbolism, an exceptionally well-preserved historical patina, and the distinctive formal language of the so-called Udo Style makes this ornament an outstanding testimony to the court art of the Kingdom of Benin and one of the most remarkable examples of this rare stylistic group.
Inv. No. MAZ18783
Catawiki does not issue Certificates of Authenticity for traditional or ancient African art objects. Our Terms and Traditional African Art Submission Guidelines require sellers to provide accurate and complete information regarding the authenticity, provenance and legal origin of their objects and, where applicable, supporting documentation. The guidelines do not require such documentation to take the form of an independently issued Certificate of Authenticity in every case.
Where a seller provides a self-issued certificate or declaration concerning authenticity, this represents the seller's own statement and should not be understood as independent third-party certification or certification by Catawiki. If the listing expressly states that a Certificate of Authenticity will be provided with the object, the seller is expected to provide that document as described.
Catawiki's experts perform a virtual review based on the information, photographs, provenance and supporting documentation provided during the submission process. Acceptance of a traditional or ancient African art object for auction does not constitute independent authentication or certification by Catawiki, nor does it mean that Catawiki's expert has physically or scientifically authenticated, patina-analyzed, or dated the object. Under our Terms and Traditional African Art Submission Guidelines, the seller remains responsible for the accuracy, legality, provenance and authenticity of the object and the information provided.
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
Royal Hip Ornament (Uhunmwu-Ẹkuẹ), so-called Udo Style,
Brass, cast by the lost-wax process, incl stand
Kingdom of Benin, Nigeria
Private Collection
This exceptional royal hip ornament (Uhunmwu-Ẹkuẹ) belongs to the highest-quality surviving works of the Benin court foundries. It represents the so-called Udo Style, a recognisable stylistic group within Benin court art, characterised by particularly powerful sculptural modelling, vibrant ornamentation, and a pronounced sense of spatial depth.
The face displays the idealised symmetry typical of royal representations, yet it is animated by a forceful plastic treatment and refined individual details. The almond-shaped eyes are deeply set beneath carefully engraved eyelids; two vertical scarification lines on the forehead are accompanied by finely incised eyebrows. The strongly modelled nose, slightly open mouth, and distinctive treatment of the lips lend the face a striking presence and an expression of inner tension.
A defining feature of this ornament is its exceptionally rich sculptural composition. Along the edges of the face run finely modelled snakes, whose curving bodies elegantly frame the composition. Beneath the mouth appear pairs of crocodiles, their stylised bodies forming the lower termination of the design. These animals are far more than decorative elements; they belong to the royal symbolic system of Benin and refer to protection, power, wisdom, and the Oba’s ability to control the various realms of the visible and invisible world.
Particularly impressive is the tall, openwork coral crown, elaborately constructed in relief. Above an ornamented crown band rises a richly articulated structure with openwork passages and finely modelled motifs, evoking the appearance of a royal crown originally covered with coral beads. At the centre rises a strongly twisted coral-like finial, whose sculptural effect is further enhanced by the open construction. This complex openwork technique ranks among the most technically demanding achievements of the Benin court foundries and demonstrates an extraordinary mastery of the lost-wax casting process.
Of particular appeal is the surface, which has developed over several centuries. Dark brown areas of the metal alternate with a finely evolved olive-green to light green noble patina, preserved especially in the recessed areas and along the sculptural ornaments. This natural ageing process gives the brass exceptional depth and allows the delicate relief structures to emerge with remarkable clarity.
Within Benin court art, several distinct stylistic traditions can be identified. While the famous hip ornaments of the classical Benin style – particularly the examples known as Idia masks – are characterised by calm surfaces, clear geometry, and an almost architectural restraint, the so-called Udo Style follows a distinctly more dynamic aesthetic principle. The faces display stronger sculptural modelling and greater spatial depth; the border ornamentation appears more animated and organic; animal representations are more elaborate and more closely integrated into the overall composition. This is further enhanced by elaborate, often openwork crowns with complex sculptural constructions. Whereas the classical Idia masks derive their impact primarily from the perfect balance of their proportions, works of the Udo Style achieve their particular fascination through the combination of royal monumentality with extraordinary decorative richness and sculptural abundance.
The term “Udo Style” should be understood as a modern art-historical working designation. It does not represent a historically documented stylistic term from the Kingdom of Benin itself, but rather serves to classify a group of closely related bronzes whose formal language differs noticeably from the classical court style. No contemporary name for this workshop or stylistic tradition is currently known. The term has become established primarily among Benin specialists, within international art dealing, and in collection research, although its precise definition has not yet been uniformly established in scholarly literature. Its use should therefore be understood as a modern typological classification rather than as a historically recorded designation.
This group of works nevertheless demonstrates convincingly that the Benin court foundries did not follow a rigid artistic canon. Rather, within royal art there existed a remarkable stylistic diversity, in which different workshops or artist groups developed their own formal characteristics while maintaining the iconographic and ceremonial functions of royal insignia. It is conceivable that the so-called Udo Style represents either an independent workshop tradition or a later developmental phase within the court foundries. Due to the incomplete historical record, however, this interpretation must remain an art-historical hypothesis.
Uhunmwu-Ẹkuẹ were not masks in the literal sense, but ceremonial hip ornaments of the Oba. They were worn attached to a belt during important court rituals and served as references to revered ancestors or distinguished members of the royal dynasty. The term “Hip Mask”, commonly used in Western literature, describes only the manner in which these objects were worn; the original designation preserved in Benin oral tradition is Uhunmwu-Ẹkuẹ.
The combination of supreme technical mastery in bronze casting, complex iconographic symbolism, an exceptionally well-preserved historical patina, and the distinctive formal language of the so-called Udo Style makes this ornament an outstanding testimony to the court art of the Kingdom of Benin and one of the most remarkable examples of this rare stylistic group.
Inv. No. MAZ18783
Catawiki does not issue Certificates of Authenticity for traditional or ancient African art objects. Our Terms and Traditional African Art Submission Guidelines require sellers to provide accurate and complete information regarding the authenticity, provenance and legal origin of their objects and, where applicable, supporting documentation. The guidelines do not require such documentation to take the form of an independently issued Certificate of Authenticity in every case.
Where a seller provides a self-issued certificate or declaration concerning authenticity, this represents the seller's own statement and should not be understood as independent third-party certification or certification by Catawiki. If the listing expressly states that a Certificate of Authenticity will be provided with the object, the seller is expected to provide that document as described.
Catawiki's experts perform a virtual review based on the information, photographs, provenance and supporting documentation provided during the submission process. Acceptance of a traditional or ancient African art object for auction does not constitute independent authentication or certification by Catawiki, nor does it mean that Catawiki's expert has physically or scientifically authenticated, patina-analyzed, or dated the object. Under our Terms and Traditional African Art Submission Guidelines, the seller remains responsible for the accuracy, legality, provenance and authenticity of the object and the information provided.
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
Indigenous object name
Uhunmwu-Ẹkuẹ
Ethnic group/ culture
Benin
Country of Origin
Nigeria
Material
Bronze
Sold with stand
Yes
Condition
Fair condition
Title of artwork
A bronze hip
Height
16 cm
Weight
640 g
Authenticity
Reproduction/replica
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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