The British Museum - Kingdom of Ife Sculptures from West Africa

layers have been mixed up with debris from later settlements, clear contexts and
sequences are difficult to decipher.
A few Ife objects had been brought to Europe before 1910, and were known to
researchers at the British Museum. However, the most famous find in the early twentieth
century was made that year by the German explorer Leo Frobenius. In a three-week
visit and a return trip under police auspices, he collected information and objects, some
of which are still in museums in Europe. Frobenius, like many others of his day, could
not imagine that such works were of African origin and theorized that this great art was
evidence of the lost Atlantis of the Greeks and that the Yoruba deity Olokun was the
same god as the Greek Poseidon. 5
The people of Ife, including its rulers and priests, did know about the existence
of this art, long before Europeans started taking note of it. Some objects were found
inadvertently and were brought into the Ooni’s Palace for safekeeping, 6 but others were
actively preserved in the palace and in shrines dedicated to different deities throughout
the region. In some cases, although the sculptures may have been casually found, they
were subsequently incorporated into new ritual contexts. Sites such as the Ore Grove,
filled with stone and iron sculptures, or the Iwinrin Grove, where a substantial number
of terra-cotta heads were found, are still places of active ceremonial life, where altars
include old objects as well as newer ones. Several important sculptures, including the
terra-cotta head said to represent the court servant Lajuwa (cat. no. 39), and the most
famous object of all, the copper mask thought to represent the ruler Obalufon II (cat.
no. 37), are said to have been kept in the palace since the time they were made.
The exhibition Kingdom of Ife: Sculptures from West Africa includes more than one
hundred exceptional objects in metal, stone, and terra-cotta. Although some of the
beautiful copper-alloy heads and figures in this exhibition have previously traveled
outside Nigeria, many of the stone sculptures and the small terra-cotta objects, some
of which show disease and deformity, have never been displayed outside that country.
These diverse images show not only the serenity and self-assurance readily associated
with the idea of dynasty but also suggestions of violence and misfortune that may also
have been characteristic of life in Ife.
As Peter Garlake, who excavated the Obalara Land site, has written, “the two distinct
clusters of sculptures emphasize . . . the polarity in Ife art between serenity and violence,
calm and terror, health and sickness.” 7 Moreover,
we cannot forget the obverse of the tranquility we all admire. Artists just as competent
and expressive showed with equally impressive insight and conviction—and great
intensity—the violence, horrors, agonies, and sufferings of another part of society.
Mortality is set against immortality, pain against serenity, restraint against abandon,
the victim against authority, the sacrificial against the divine. In comparison, the
Fig. 3 Pair of figures, Ita Yemoo, Nigeria, 14th–early
15th century C.E., copper alloy and pigment, H: 7½ in.
(19 cm) / National Museum, Ile-Ife, Nigeria
In 1957, this extraordinary copper-alloy sculpture of a
couple was found by workmen beside the road to Ilesa,
a few miles northeast of Ife. The face of the male figure
was destroyed. The casting, scarcely ¹⁄16 inch thick in
some places, appears to portray an Ooni and his queen.
They wear and hold the symbols of their authority
(ase). The crown and hair of the queen were painted
black. The large beads on the king’s crown, the beads
around their necks, and their wrappers were painted
red. The forefingers of his hands are hooked together in
what appears to be a ritual gesture. Her arm is linked
through his, and his leg encircles her leg. The linking
of male and female in Yoruba art expresses the cultural
theme of dependence of the sexes upon one another for
the actualization of their essential natures (iwa).
middle ground of ordinary life was ignored. 8
To understand these contrasting forces, the corpus of ancient Ife art must be placed in
the context of Yoruba culture—its history, mythology, beliefs and ritual practices, and
traditions of rulership. In this light, the prevalence of these extraordinary depictions
of illness and sacrifice are not straightforward representations of reality, but rather
references to the centrality of one of the founding heroes, Obatala, in Ife myths and
histories. Obatala is regarded as having had an important role in shaping human form,
and abnormalities may be not simply signs of sin or illness, but rather marks of divinity
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