Photograph preserved in the Frank Willett Archives, London
Horse Head
Yoruba People, Ife Kingdom, ca. 11th – 16th century;
present-day Nigeria
Terracotta
Length: 18 cm
Width: 9.9 cm
Provenance
– Documented in the Frank Willett Archives as presumably found at the Lafogido site, Ile-Ife,
in the 1960s or earlier, prior to Ekpo Eyo’s 1969 excavation
– El Hadji Ibrahim Abdoulaye, Paris
– Bernard de Grunne, Brussels
– Rudolf and Leonore Blum, Zumikom, acquired from the above on April 8, 1998
– By descent from the above to their children
– Hammer Auktionen, Zurich, May 21, 2016, lot 124, consigned by the above
– Acquired at the above auction
Published
– Karl-Ferdinand Schaedler, Earth and Ore: 2500 Years of African Art in Terra-cotta and Metal,
Munich, 1997, p. 217, pl. 420
– Karl-Ferdinand Schaedler, Erde und Erz: 2500 Jahre Afrikanische Kunst aus Terrakotta und
Metall, Munich, 1997, p. 217, pl. 420
– Raould Lehuard, “Erde & Erz / Terre & Métal, Une exposition fantôme à Munich”, Arts
d’Afrique Noire, Spring 1998, no. 105, p. 45
– Frank Willett, The Art of Ife: A descriptive Catalogue and Database, Glasgow, 2004, cat. T787
– Rudolf Blum, Sammlung Rudolf and Leonore Blum, Zumikom, 2007, vol. 2, no. 98
– Karl-Ferdinand Schaedler, Encyclopedia of African Art and Culture, Munich, 2009, p. 290
– Suzanne Preston Blier, Art and Risk in Ancient Yoruba: Ife History, Power, and Identity,
c. 1300, Cambridge, 2015, p. 296, fig. c
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