Bronze Head from Ife (Object in Focus)

Bronze Head from Ife (Object in Focus)

• 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