Bronze Head from Ife

Every purchase supports the British Museum Believed to represent a king, the beautiful bronze head in the British Museum is one of seventeen objects unearthed in 1938-9 at the town of Ife in Nigeria The stunning naturalism and sophisticated craftsmanship of the objects challenged Western perceptions of African art at the time, which were largely based around abstract wooden figures It was consequently assumed at first that they must have been made by Europeans or under European influence In time, however, they came to be seen as wholly African, probably dating from the twelfth to fourteenth centuries, and representative of a hitherto unknown artistic tradition on that continent