2-730-735 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Head , possibly mid-1500s or early 1600s. Metal arts flourished in the Benin kingdom from the 15th to the 19th century, until the British military sacked the Benin capital in 1897. This brass head depicts the divine Benin ruler cloaked in a headdress and collar of red coral beads. Such heads were ordered by a new king (oba) as centerpieces for the ancestral altar--an earthen platform--in honor of his deceased predecessor.