Provenance/Former Ownership Historyprovenance Purchased by Mr. James Willis for the Fine Arts Museums at Sotheby Parke Bernet & Co., 34-35 New Bond Street, London WIA 2AA on June 16, 1980 (lot 17).
The dealer James Willis bid at auction on behalf of the museum.
“European private collector” (Sotheby’s 1980 sale catalogue)
Dutch collector (“Schwartz” - Leloup, email 2015) (“Schwarz” - Fagg, 1958). Possibly Adolph Schwartz, Amstelveen, The Netherlands) till 1980
Hélène Leloup, Paris, dealer and collector sold it to Schwartz
John Hewett, Bog Farm, Kent, England, dealer
Collection in Switzerland (Fagg, 1958)
Exhibition Historyexhibition history “West Africa Court and TribalArt,” Arts Council 1967, L’Art , Dakar and Paris, 1966
“Benin Art” March 2 - May 2, 1983, The Museum of Cultural History, LA, CA
“Animals in African Art: From the Familiar to the Marvelous” traveling exhibition organized by The Museum for African Art, New York, NY (Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, AL Feb-April 1996; Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska, May - July 1996; Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina, Sept-Dec 1996; Dallas Art Museum, Dallas, TX, Feb-April 1997)
M.H. de Young-Art of the Americas: Art and Ethnography -3/28/98-7/5/98
Warren M. Robbins and Nancy Ingram Nooter, African Art in American Collections, Washington DC: Smithsonian Press, 1989, pg. 217, fig. 559
Publication Historybibliography Fagg, 1969, pl. ZII a, No.72
Fagg, 1958, pl. I
Leuzinger, 1972, p.102, K7 (ill.)
Meauze, 1967
Berrin, Kathy "Girl with Leopard: A Benin Bronze Plaque," Triptych, FAM/AAM/SFO, Autumn 1980, pp. 12-15