Wooden altar figure showing a chiefly head wearing a elaborate headpiece and beaded neck-piece, painted in black, red and gold. Headpiece has round top, conical side projections and on one side a red-painted feather-shaped projection from the left side of the headpiece. It is very likely that this item is "Beaded Figure, Benin" presented to the museum by G. H. Turnbull Esq., 8 Kingswood Road, Wallasey, accessioned in 1937 as 37.2.
This carved wooden head is shown wearing chiefly regalia, including a red feather and coral bead collar. Although related to the commemorative heads in bronze and brass commissioned for royal altars, wooden heads like this one were made for ancestral altars of lower-ranking Edo chiefs and portray an ideal image of chiefly authority. This head has lost its original label and has therefore been given a temporary number, but it may have been given to the museum in 1937 by a Mr G. H. Turnbull of Wallasey on the Wirral.