THE COURT ART OF BENIN
Ricerca Ing. F.P. Di Giacomo - Dati e cartografia in internet: Alpha Consult S.r.l - Web: G. Cerica |
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THE COURT ART OF BENIN
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| Perhaps the best known, and certainly the most numerous, sculptures in bronze in the whole of Black Africa come from the city of Benin, capital of the Edo Kingdom. Knowledge of them reached the outside world as a result of a British punitive expedition to that city in 1897, when thousands of sculptures, not only in bronze, but also in wood and ivory, were removed first to England and from there to many parts of the world. Benin art has rightly been referred to as "court art", because the Oba (king) had a monopoly of the works. He maintained specialist guilds of bronze-smiths, wood and ivory carvers, and beadwork's. The bronze-smiths in particular were forbidden, on pain of death, to work for anyone outside the court, where everything was concentrated. | ||||||||||||
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