Three figures, Brass, Nigeria

Source catalog description

This description refers to material held by Smithsonian Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, National Museum of African Art. Visual details below describe the original material.

Group of three figures representing ancestral images of King Ockiya of Brass, Nigeria, ca. late 1870s. Accompanying inscription reads, "Benin Gods." Photographer is likely Sir Henry H. Johnston. The center figure is from the court of King Ockiya of Brass, who was the head of the trading house at the port in the Niger Delta. In 1877, reportedly to mark the royal family's conversion to Christianity, the Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther (the first African bishop of the Church Missionary Society) removed these three figures to England rather than destroying it. The middle figure was then sold several times before being gifted to the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, in 1965 by Bernard J. Reis. View the catalog record.

Collection

West African photographs

Catalog date

[ca. 1880]

Recorded places

Africa; Nigeria; Brass (Nigeria)

Recorded subjects

Ancestor worship; statues

Format and extent

1 Print (albumen., b&w, 15 x 21 cm.)

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