Ife and Benin: Royal Art of West Africa

In the city of Ife, in present-day Nigeria, artists between about the 12th and 15th centuries created strikingly naturalistic heads in copper alloy and terracotta. Many are thought to represent rulers (Ooni) or court figures, and they are sacred to the Yoruba. When the German explorer Leo Frobenius saw Ife heads in 1910, he wrongly suggested they were made by a lost Greek colony, an assumption that revealed European prejudice about African abilities.

To the southeast, the Kingdom of Benin developed a royal art tradition controlled by guilds working for the Oba (king). From the 16th century, brass plaques covered palace pillars and recorded court ceremonies, warriors and even Portuguese traders. These works were records of history and power. In 1897 a British military expedition sacked Benin City and took thousands of objects, now spread across Western museums.