TR.2022.8

Small metal sword hilt or handle with a fragment of an iron sword jutting out of the object's bottom. The handle is janus-faced and anthropomorphic, with almond-shaped eyes, large rounded nose, large and parted lips that resemble a cowry, and a comb-like beard. A British style circular hat, resembling a pith helmet, surmounts the head, with an etched then braided strap that frames the ears and encircles the chin. A circlet of spheres surrounds the "neck" of the figure and the "body" is suggested by the sword and decorated with incised designs and zig-zag framing of the insertion point for the iron sword. "BENIN.WBSTR.1898." is handwritten in yellow on one side of the object's iron sword fragment.

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Bronze and iron

height, width, and depth: 5 1/8 × 1 7/8 × 1 3/8in. (13 × 4.8 × 3.5cm)

Metal

In gold paint on front: BENIN. WBSTR. 1898.

circa 18th or 19th century

Edo artist

To be confirmed: Courtesy of John Warne Monroe

Benin City until 1897; W.D. Webster, London, 1898; August Pitt-Rivers, Dorset, 1900-?; Recently deceased gentleman, Elizabeth, NJ; “eliab” of eBay; Collection of John Warne Monroe, 2014

Benin Kingdom, present-day Nigeria

African

Because of my publication on our Benin Kingdom bell (African Arts), Associate Professor of History at Iowa State John Warne Monroe reached out to me concerning donating the Handle. As he states: “When I followed up with the seller to get more information about where the piece came from, he told me this: ‘It was purchased from a man who was hired to clean the house of a recently deceased gentleman from Elizabeth, NJ who I believe was of Lithuanian and Italian descent. I also purchased a bunch of WWI postcards from him, so more likely than not, the old man had relatives that served in WWI’…Not much to go on, but alas that's all I have in terms of the ownership history between Pitt-Rivers and ‘eliab’." He surmised that it was likely looted from Benin City in 1897 in the infamous Raid as part of a British military campaign, then collected by W.D. Webster, and subsequently published in Pitt-Rivers’ 1900 “Antique Works of Art from Benin,” so presumably in his collection as well. Pitt Rivers and Webster are two of the major players in the circulation of these objects, and a great majority of them came through their hands. According to Monroe: “Once I figured out the story, in my mind ownership of the piece became a moral problem. Finding a way to get this object someplace appropriate has been on my to-do list for a while, and I'm very happy to get a chance to cross it off.” This moral problem mirrors that which American museum collections are now facing in what to do with and how to handle their Benin kingdom and other colonial-era arts, and curator A. M. Maples used it as a case study during a Museum Day roundtable presentation at the ACASA Triennial meeting, June 2021 to open up these questions and discussions. As for Webster, the majority of the objects that reached the European market from Britain between 1897 and 1904 passed through his hands. He was one of the most famous dealers of ethnographic objects in late nineteenth century Britain. His activity as a dealer and auctioneer coincided with the heyday of colonial expansion that supplied the rapid development of both public and private ethnographic collection. The hat being worn by the janus figure resembles (though predates) a British pith helmet from WW2 called a "Brodie" or 'turtle' helmet. They have similar chin straps. More research should be conducted to find comparable hats and determine whether this represents a European or an African. It could be a "Wolseley" pattern helmet, which was a distinctive British-designed sun helmet developed and popularized in the late 19th and early 20th century and worn by the British Army from 1899-1948. Another similar helmet was worn by the Afrika Korps. [A. Maples, May 20, 2022]

Farnham Museum, Room 7 case 73, date unknown (between 1898 and 1960s)

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Augustus Henry Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers, "Antique works of art from Benin," (printed privately: 1900), 50, illus. plate 25, figs. 159 and 160. Augustus H. L. F. Pitt-Rivers, "Catalogue of the Collection of the Second Pitt Rivers Museum at Farnham, Dorset, Vol. 5," (printed privately: 1898), p. 1713, illus. Available through Cambridge University Library databases.prm.ox.ac.uk/fmi/webd/rethinking_volumes

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2022-05-18_Janus-Faced_Sword_Fragment_TR_2022_8_view_A.jpg

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North Carolina Museum of Art

TR.2022.8

Janus-Faced Brass Handle with Fragment of Iron Sword

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