The piece was previously in the collection of the Cranmore Ethnographical Museum (Reg. No 24936). The Cranmore Ethnographical Museum was set-up by Harry Geoffrey and Irene Marguerite Beasley in 1928. This piece was part of the donation made by Irene M. Beasley to the British Museum in 1944, when the whole Besley collection was distributed following H. G. Beasley's death in 1939.
Commemorative head of Queen Mother; lost-wax cast in brass. Depicted wearing high coral bead collar. Conical slightly curved hairdo covered with a net of beads. Iron inlaid in the pupils of the eyes.
The piece is an altar commemorative head of an Iyoba (Mother of the King). The hairdo, slightly curved in the form of a beak, is the typical hairdo made exclusively for Obas' wives.