Benin in Boston 89 NOTES 1. Referred to as “bronzes,” Benin works, cast in the cire-perdue, or lost-wax, casting technique, are mostly brass, i.e., copper alloys of various compositions. 2. The Museum of Fine Arts is grateful to Robert Owen Lehman for his visionary generosity. The renovation of the Benin Kingdom Gallery was made possible with support from the Robert Lehman Foundation and the Vance Wall Foundation. 3. For information, including provenance, of all works in the collection, see http://www.mfa.org/give/gifts-art/Lehman-Collection. 4. See, for example, Egharevba 1936, Ben-Amos Girshick 1980, and Igbafe 2007. 5. From the early thirteenth century to the present, there have been thirty-eight kings in the second dynasty, including the current ruler, Omo N’Oba N’Edo Uku Akpolokpolo, Erediauwa, C.F.R., Oba of Benin, who ascended the throne in 1979. 6. See Ryder 1969. 7. Pitt-Rivers spelled his name with and without a hyphen. In this essay, it appears hyphenated throughout, with the exception of the title of his book, Antique Works from Benin (1900), and the name of his museum at the University of Oxford. 8. See Waterfield and King 2006, 36–53. 9. For a description of the catalog see http://janus.lib.cam.ac.uk/db/node. xsp?id= EAD%2FGBR%2F0012%2FMS%20Add.9455. 10. Pitt Rivers 1900, IV. 11. Most notably Karpinski 1984 and Nevadomsky 2007. 12. See http://web.prm.ox.ac.uk/rpr/index.php /people/866-l, accessed October 14, 2013. 13. In 1900, Roth became the honorary curator of the Bankfield Museum in Halifax, Yorkshire. In 1903, he published Great Benin. Its Customs, Art and Horrors, based on the eyewitness accounts of his brother. 14. University of Cambridge Library Department of Manuscripts and University Archives; General Fox- Pitt-Rivers: Catalogues of His Collections, Add.9455, vol. 5, p. 1636. 15. Gregory Clark, “What Were the British Earnings and Prices Then? (New Series)” MeasuringWorth, 2013, URL: http://www.measuringworth.com/ ukearncpi/, accessed October 13, 2013. 16. See http://web.prm.ox.ac.uk/rpr/index.php/ articles/88-gf-waldo-johnson, accessed on October 12, 2013. 17. Pitt Rivers 1900. Pl. XIII. 18. Luschan 1919, 297–299; Eyo 2008, 152, cat. 102. 19. Geary 1997, 47 and 51. 20. Karpinski 1984. 21. University of Cambridge Library Department of Manuscripts and University Archives; General Fox- Pitt-Rivers: Catalogues of His Collections, Add.9455, vol. 5, p. 1641. 22. Pitt Rivers 1900, Pl. XII, nos. 76–78. 23. Based on hairstyles and facial marks, Ben-Amos Girshick (1980, 18) was the first to suggest that they might depict defeated neighboring rulers. 24. University of Cambridge Library Department of Manuscripts and University Archives; General Fox-Pitt-Rivers: Catalogues of His Collections, Add.9455, vol. 5, p. 1617. 25. Pitt Rivers, 34 and Pl. XVII. 26. Waterfield and King 2006, 45. See also von Luschan 1919, p. 359. figs. 528 & 529; and Basler 1929, nos. 12a and b. 27. University of Cambridge Library Department of Manuscripts and University Archives, General Fox-Pitt-Rivers: Catalogues of His Collections, Add.9455, vol. 5, p. 1646. 28. Gunsch (2012) presents the first major analysis of hundreds of Benin plaques. 29. In a definitive Benin catalog, editor Barbara Plankensteiner mentioned this plaque in her entry about another piece belonging to this remarkable corpus in the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg, Germany. She wrote “Three of them battle plaques are currently housed in the British Museum, one is in Leipzig … and a further one was originally in the possession of Pitt-Rivers and is now missing (Plankensteiner 2007, 456). 30. University of Cambridge Library Department of Manuscripts and University Archives; General Fox-Pitt-Rivers: Catalogues of His Collections, Add.9455, vol. 5, p. 1590. 31. University of Cambridge Library Department of Manuscripts and University Archives; General Fox-Pitt-Rivers: Catalogues of His Collections, Add.9455, vol. 5, p. 1629. Published in Pitt Rivers 1900, Pl. V, nos. 19–12. 32. University of Cambridge Library Department of Manuscripts and University Archives; General Fox-Pitt-Rivers: Catalogues of His Collections, Add.9455, vol. 5, p. 1743. Published in Pitt Rivers 1900, Pl. XXVII, no. 181. 33. Dark 1975; Junge 2007. 34. I thank Hermione Waterfield for this email communication on October 13, 2013. 35. Eyo 2008, cat. 99. 36. Zöller 1885, 66–82. 37. Curnow 2007, 178. 38. Vogel 1988, 14–15. CITED REFERENCES Basler, Adolphe. 1929. L’art chez les peuples primitifs. Paris: Librairie de France. Ben-Amos Girshick, Paula. 1980. The Art of Benin. London: Thames and Hudson. Curnow, Kathy. 2007. “Cultural Flow and Breakwaters: Art Connecting the Benin Kingdom with the Coast.” Barbara Plankensteiner (ed.). Benin Kings and Rituals. Court Arts from Nigeria, pp. 170–181. Gent: Snoeck; Vienna: Kunsthistorisches Museum mit MVK und ÖTM. Dark, Philip J. C. 1975. “Benin Bronze Heads: Styles and Chronology.”Daniel F. McCall and Edna Bay, (eds.). African Images. Essays in African Iconology (Boston University Papers on Africa IV); New York and London; Africana Publishing Co. 25–103 Egharevba, Jacob U. 1936. A Short History of Benin. Lagos: C.M.S. Bookshop. Eyo, Ekpo. 2008. Masterpieces of Nigerian Art: From Shrines to Showcases. Abuja, Nigeria: The Ministry of Information and Communication, Abuja, Federal Republic of Nigeria. Geary, Christraud M. 1997. “Early Images from Benin at the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution.” African Arts 30, 3: 44–53, 93. Gunsch, Kathryn Wysocki. 2012. Images for the King. The Bronze Plaques of the Benin Court and their Architectural Context. PhD dissertation. Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. Igbafe, Philip Aigbana. 2007. “A History of the Benin Kingdom: An Overview.” Barbara Plankensteiner (ed.). Benin Kings and Rituals. Court Arts from Nigeria, pp. 41–53. Gent: Snoeck; Vienna: Kunsthistorisches Museum mit MVK und ÖTM. Junge, Peter. 2007. “Age Determination of Commemorative Heads: The Example of the Berlin Collection.” Barbara Plankensteiner (ed.). Benin Kings and Rituals. Court Arts from Nigeria, pp. 185–197. Gent: Snoeck; Vienna: Kunsthistorisches Museum mit MVK und ÖTM. Karpinski, Peter. 1984. “A Benin Bronze Horseman at the Merseyside County Museum.” African Arts 17, 2: 54–62, 88–92. Luschan, Felix von. 1919. Die Altertümer von Benin. 3 vols. Veröffentlichungen aus dem Museum für Völkerkunde, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, vol. VII–X. Berlin and Leipzig: Vereinigung wissenschaftlicher Verleger Walter de Gruyter. Nevadomsky, Joseph. 2007. “Horseman.” Barbara Plankensteiner (ed.). Benin Kings and Ritual. Court Arts from Nigeria, 449–450, cat. nos. 228, 229, 230. Gent: Snoeck; Vienna: Kunsthistorisches Museum mit MVK und ÖTM. Pitt Rivers, Augustus Henry Lane Fox. 1900. Antique Works of Art from Benin, Collected by Lieutenant General Pitt Rivers. London: Author’s edition. Plankensteiner, Barbara. 2007. “Relief Plaque: Battle Scene, possibly Idah War.” Barbara Plankensteiner (ed.) Benin Kings and Rituals. Court Arts from Nigeria, 459, cat. no. 237. Gent: Snoeck; Vienna: Kunsthistorisches Museum mit MVK und ÖTM. Roth, Henry Ling. 1903. Great Benin. Its Customs, Art and Horrors. Halifax, UK: F. King & Sons. Ryder, Alan F. C. 1969. Benin and the Europeans: 1485–1897. London and Harlow: Longmans, Green & Co. Vogel, Susan. 1988. “Introduction: Africa and the Renaissance.” Bassani, Ezio and William B. Fagg. Africa and the Renaissance: Art in Ivory. 13–20. New York: The Center for African Art; Munich: Prestel-Verlag. Waterfield, Hermione and J. H. C. King. 2006. Provenance. Twelve Collectors of Ethnographic Art in England, 1760–1990. Paris: Somogy Art Publishers; Geneva: Barbier-Mueller Museum. Zöller, Hugo. 1885. Die deutsche Colonie Kamerun. Erster Teil: Das Kamerun-Gebirge nebst den Nachbar-Ländern Dahome, englische Goldküsten-Colonie, Niger-Mündungen, Fernando Po u.s.w. Berlin and Stuttgart: Verlag von W. Spemann.
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