Gestileerde afbeelding van een runderkop (van boven gezien) in hoog-reliëf. De runderkop was waarschijnlijk onderdeel van een reliëfplaat.
De pilaren van het paleis van de koning, de Oba, waren van onder tot boven met bronzen reliëfplaten bekleed. Deze
Materiaal en techniek (NB: ook thesaurustermen aanpassen!)material
'On 29 December 1948 the Museum Volkenkunde acquired three pieces from Edgar Beer in Brussels of which one was a brass relief with a bovine head (RV-2771-3). He delivered the objects himself (CL-L 1948).
A letter from Beer to director of Museum Volkenkunde G.W. Locher (1908-1997) states ‘I need to go back to the province this week to buy African and Precolumbian pieces from a private collection.’ The back of the letter lists the three objects (series RV-2771) in Dutch, no. 3 being: ‘brass animal head, Benin.’ The object is the only one of the three objects purchased that is described briefly in the museum register (MR-L: NL-LdnRMV_A03_066_0049).
Very few plaques like this seem to exist, and in most the bovine head is still attached to the plaque. There is only one example of a similar object on a photograph, no. Af,A60.75, in the collection of the British Museum (The British Museum 2020f), and one other, no. III C 8252 in the Ethnologisches Museum in Berlin (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin 2020c). In Webster’s catalogues there are similar objects in catalogue 21, no. 87 and catalogue 29 nrs. 85 and 119. It is currently unclear whether the heads without plaques were ever part of a plaque or whether they were more similar to masks.'
(Excerpt from Provenance no. 2 'The Benin Collections at the National Museum of World Cultures' written by Rosalie Hans with Annette Schmidt, 20-01-2021)
For more information about the provenance, see <a href="https://issuu.com/tropenmuseum/docs/2021_provenance_2__benin__e-book" target="_blank"> Provenance #2 – the Benin collections at the National Museum of World Cultures </a> (NB: Issuu uses cookies).