Primary Documentationnotes Accession book entry: : 'H.N. THOMPSON Esq. Conservator of Forests, Southern Nigeria. Jan - Very fine ivory statuette of nativechief on horseback, City of Benin, Nigeria.'; Accession book entry: : [added] - 'Ivory staff mount for royal ceremonial. (B.E.B. Fagg)'; Documentation: : Correspondence and notes in RDF.; Written on object: : Benin city, NIGERIA Pres. by H.N. Thompson, Esq. 1909 [L.Ph 'DCF 2004-2006 What's Upstairs?' 19/1/2005]
Research Notes: Related Documents File - From an e-mail sent by Barbara Blackmun to Jeremy Coote on Friday 1 September 2000: 'About the ivory staff, 1909.1.1. As Linda [Mowat] recorded on the catalogue listing, I told her that the figure represents an Iyase, or war captain of Benin. The earliest appearance of this very distinctive helmet is apparently on the rectangular plaques: see von Luschan 1919, figs. 237–241. Here the figure wears no shirt, but the hat is elaborately defined, and it always has a feather on the sinister (his left) side. The remaining accoutrements consist of a high beaded collar, a necklace of leopard teeth or claws, a band of multiple strands of beads over the sinister shoulder, a wrapper covered with what looks like the scalloped layers of red flannel that cover padded cloth, and the complete figure of a leopard worn diagonally over the tied ends of the waist band on the sinister side. Opinions in Benin City and in Udo, from a variety of officials interviewed independently, maintained that this helmet has been part of the distinctive insignia of the Iyase of Benin for a very long time. In ivory, a similarly-helmeted figure (without a feather on the helmet) appears without a shirt, on tusks carved in the last quarter of the 1700s and in the very early 1800s. The figure on the staff, however, wears an elaborate short sleeved shirt that could depict another type of armor—either padded cloth, shirred, or even chain mail. The Iyase figure wearing this shirt appears on the earliest of the tusks, carved about 1735-1755, and also on tusks carved in the last quarter of the 1700s. (These tusks are extremely worn and cracked.) Then the motif is not used again until the tusks commissioned by Oba Ovonranmwen, around 1888–1890, and these are in excellent condition. As for the carving, which is very skillful, the best carvers seem to have worked between 1800–1815 (for Oba Obanosa), and 1850–1897 (for Oba Adolo and Oba Ovonranmwen). The carvers do not necessarily use the same motifs on the tusks and on staffs, but it is more likely that a master carver did the staff (with the shirt on) first, and that the tusk carvers followed, than the other way around. If this were the case, however, the Iyase staffs would have been carved before 1735, and none of them show much wear and tear. (Unfortunately, I do not know how they were used, but I doubt that they were packed away in boxes all that time!) If we are judging by a combination of the style and the condition, we should assign it to Adolo (1850–1888) or to Ovonranmwen (1888–1897).'
Examined by Benin specialist Barbara Blackmun in July 1991. According to Blackmun, it represents an Iyase (war captain). [LMM 7 1991 ?; JC 9 7 2000]