In all likelihood, this head also depicts an Oni. Aged at circa 700 years, this wonderfully realistic object is distinctive insofar as there are barely any other objects of comparison. A crown-like top section formed in this way is not common for objects in the Ife style. Coarse when compared to the face, it was presumably not intended to be seen as such, but rather to support a crown, a conjecture supported by the many small holes carved at the hairline. The nose, cheeks and forehead excellently express the smoothness of the skin, while the three large holes in the decoratively-scarred neck indicate that the head was once attached to a wooden torso bedecked with clothing . The holes around the mouth were probably draped with beard hair and strings of pearls that served as further ornamentation.
Cp.:
Frank WILLETT: Ife. Metropole afrikanischer Kunst, Bergisch Gladbach 1967, S. 35/ 36.
Schätze aus Alt-Nigeria. Ministerium für Kultur, Berlin (Ost) 1985, S. 114.
Barbara PLANKENSTEINER (Hg.): Benin. Könige und Rituale. Höfische Kunst aus Nigeria, Wien 2007, S. 272.
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