Stolen Benin City Mask To Be Auctioned In London For N1.25b

The admiralty confiscated most of the booty and auctioned it off to defray the costs of the expedition, although a sizeable group ended up in the British Museum. Among them is another of the same group of ivory masks. The technical skill of these cast bronze and ivory ritual sculptures astounded western audiences, and the dispersal of the Benin treasures paved the way for a reassessment of African art by artists and scholars. When Jacob Epstein saw this piece in an exhibition in London in 1947, he asked the family if he could exchange it for one of his sculptures. Its whereabouts remained unknown until the family contacted Sotheby’s last year. Jean Fritts, director of African and Oceanic art at Sotheby’s, said: “It has an amazing, untouched surface which collectors love. Its honey colour attests to years of rubbing with palm oil.” From the same collection, and offered alongside, are a carved altar tusk, two ivory armlets, a rare bronze armlet cast with Portuguese figures and a bronze sculpture usually described as a tusk stand. A bronze head of an Oba of around 1575-1625 was sold for a record $4.7m in 2007. The auction record for any African work of art is €5.9m.

Oba Ovonramwen’s £4.5m mask for auction in UK

Quote

By Agency Reporter 
Wednesday, 22 Dec 2010 
 16th Century Benin Ivory pendant mask put at £4.5m is to be offered for sale at Sotheby’s in London, the News Agency of Nigeria reports.
The mask, according to the Financial Times of London, is to be auctioned in February. It said it was one of the last great masterpieces of Benin sculpture remaining in private hands and was believed to have been worn by Oba Ovonranmwen before the British punitive expedition to Benin Kingdom in 1897.
Standing at 22cm high, the mask is being sold by the descendants of Lt.-Col. Sir Henry Lionel Gallwey, whow as the deputy commissioner and vice-consul in the Oil Rivers Protectorate in 1891.
Galleway took part in the infamous expedition.
Meanwhile, the Director of African Oceanic Arts at Sotheby’s, Mr. Jean Fritts, has said the mask has an amazing, untouched surface which collectors love.
“Its honey colour attests to years of rubbing with palm oil,” he stated.
A bronze head of an Oba who ruled around 1575-1625 was sold for a record £44.7m in 2007.
There have been several calls for the return of artefacts stolen from the Benin Kingdom and kept in various art galleries around the world.