Ife Royal Bronze Heads Sculpture by Suki Fll

Beautiful sculptures cast in the lost wax technique originating from Ife, Nigeria, the religious and former royal centre of the Yoruba people. It is believed to represent an Ooni which means king and his bride. Sculptures such as these were very unique to the culture of African art. According to the oral traditions of the Yoruba people, Ife is the place where life and civilization began. Ife is regarded as the legendary homeland of the Yoruba-speaking peoples and its sacred ruler, the Ooni, is still revered as the descendant of the original creator gods.

Ife was a wealthy city-state that flourished in what is now western Nigeria between the 12th and 15th centuries. Using a complicated lost-wax process that was hugely difficult to get right, their casted life-size bronze heads to an immaculate finish, Ife’s sculptors repeated their immense creative achievement again and again. It presents a young warrior of irreducible nobility. As with most Ife heads, the warrior’s face is covered with a dense network of lines that probably represent a set of tribal striations incised into the skin. Their effect, though, is never one of fierceness or bellicosity. Instead, the insistent patterns seem to bring an unshakable elegance to these taut, unwrinkled faces. The final effect is always of deep composure. Nobody is sure how the Ife heads were used. A few may have been worn as masks. Most seem to have been made to stand on altars at times of worship. Interestingly, each one is different enough to suggest that a degree of portraiture was intended.

Related themes

IfeBronzeNigeriaAfricanartTribal