bowl
- Museum number
- Af1953,01.1
- Title
- Series: Lower Niger Bronzes
- Description
-
Pedestal bowl; lost-wax cast in copper alloy. Shallow bowl with inset rim, decorated on outer surface with band of raised plaited decoration. Flaring openwork pedestal base decorated with figures of seated monkeys (alternately male and female) with arms and legs intertwined. Figures of mudfish below. Bands of raised plaited decoration throughout.
- Production date
- 15thC-18thC (?)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 23.70 centimetres
-
Weight: 3489 grammes
-
Width: 29.70 centimetres
-
Depth: 29.20 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- The term ‘Lower Niger Bronze Industry’ was created and first used by William Buller Fagg (1957, 1973, 1990) to identify a miscellaneous group of lost-wax cast objects which were stylistically and/or iconographically distinct from Igbo-Ukwu, Ife and Benin City pieces. The objects are associated with various locations in southern Nigeria, south of the confluence of Benue and Niger Rivers and between the borders with the Republic of Benin and Cameroon. They are thought to have been made prior to European contact, circa pre-1500 A.D. Sometimes referred to as the ‘Lower Niger Bronze Industries’ or ‘Lower Niger Bronzes’.
Fagg, William B. (1957) ‘Introduction’. In Plass, Margaret. Lost wax; metal casting on the Guinea Coast. London: London Institute of Contemporary Arts.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
1991 Feb-Apr, Norwich, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Man and Metal in Ancient Nigeria
1993-1997, London, Museum of Mankind, Great Benin: a West African Kingdom
- Condition
- Good; probably missing lid.
- Acquisition date
- 1953
- Acquisition notes
- Lady Lever's father, Joseph Hamilton Lindsay Goodwin, was a timber merchant who operated in Africa and the U.S.A. Correspondence files in the Museum indicate that this pedestal bowl may have belonged to Joseph Goodwin before being inherited by Lady Lever. It is not know when or by what means Goodwin acquired the bowl.
See Collection File: Af1953,01.1.
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- Af1953,01.1
