Given by Frederick William Green, Honorary Keeper of Antiquities at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (1908–1949). The majority of 'bronze' items such as these in museum collections were collected on the 1897 Punitive Expeditionto Benin. This is likely to be the origin of this work but there is no documentation on Green's acquisition.
See Royal Art of Benin, Perl Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992, pp.196-205, and P. Girshick Ben-Amos, The Art of Benin, The British Museum, 1995, pp.100-103, illustrating handheld clappers, depicting the bird of prophecy, used in Oro festival, (Ugie Oro). The bird's beak is struck by a metal rod. I have therefore added the terms clapper and music with queries. [R.Hand]
In January 2017, Prof. Marcos Martinon-Torres and Agnese Benzonelli, UCL Institute of Archaeology, tested this idno using a portable XRF as part of a programme of base metal analysis of Benin material.