Standing figure of carved elephant ivory with traces of red stain, representing a female attendant of the Iyoba (Queen Mother)wearing coral beads and carrying a double gong or manilla, on a plinth decorated with guilloche designs: West Africa, Nigeria, Edo State, Benin, 18th century
FEMALE COURT ATTENDANT, carved ivory. NIGERIA, Benin; 18th or 19th century. As for 1985.632 [Female figure standing upon a square plinth which is ornamented with guilloche pattern. The figure has scarification marks over the eyes, & wears bracelets, necklaces, anklets & a girdle of coral beads. Incised bands cross the abdomen; the coiffeur is represented as a raised band. In the right hand an object thought to represent either a manilla or a double gong. Traces of red stain overall. Condition: old cracking overall; where the hands join the sides the joining bar is completely cracked. See: Supplementary File; "New Benin Discoveries in Scotland", by Dale Idiens, African Arts 14 (4), August, 1986, 52]. Wider World Gallery Label Text, 2001: Female Attendants. Nigeria, Benin. Eighteenth / nineteenth century. Carved elephant ivory figures of women with facial scarification marks. They stand on plinths decorated with guilloche designs to indicate high status, wear coral beads and carry an object variously identified as a double-gong or a manilla (a form of currency). Female images occur infrequently in Benin art, and ivory figures in this style appear to be as rare as the hornblower figures.|| The four Benin figures (A.1985.630-633) were donated to the McLean Museum and Art Gallery, 9 Union Street, Greenock in 1925 by Sir William Northrup McMillan (a wealthy American of Scots descent). The McLean Museum and Art Gallery lent the four figures to the Royal Scottish Museum on 1 February 1973 (A.L.468.1-4). The Inverclyde district Council (then responsible for the McLean Museum and Art Gallery), Municipal Buildings, Greenock sold the four figures to the Royal Museum of Scotland on 18 November 1985.
Idiens, Dale, New Benin Discoveries in Scotland, African Arts 14 (4), August 1986, 52