Queen Mother Head

Artist Edo Peoples, Benin City (African)

Place of OriginNigeria

Datelate 19th century

Dimensions19 3/8 × 8 1/4 in. (49.2 × 21 cm)

MediumBronze

ClassificationSculpture

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1958.4

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 01

Label TextBenin kings (Obas) commemorate their mothers by placing a cast brass head on an ancestral altar. These sculptures celebrate the special occult and military powers of Idia, the venerable mother of the 16th-century Oba Esigie. Esigie recognized his mother’s importance to his own authority by creating for her the title Iye Oba (“Queen Mother”) and giving her her own independent court. The head features the peaked hairstyle known as the “chicken’s beak,” still worn my royal women of the Benin court today. The objects in the hair represent coral bead ornaments. A semicircular opening in the top of the head, behind the peak, formerly supported a carved ivory tusk.Published References

Antique Works of Art from Benin - Collected by Lt. General Pitt-Pivers, 1900, nos. 100-101, p. 34, repr. pl. 17.

"Entering the public domain: Toledo," Art News, vol. 58, no. 3, May 1959, p. 37.

"Accessions of American and Canadian Museums, October-December, 1958," The Art Quarterly, vol. 22, 1959, p. 83, repr. p. 79.

"African Art," Toledo Museum of Art, Museum News, vol. 16, no. 2, 1973, p. 38, repr. fig. 10.

Guip, David, "Sculpture of a Benin (Ben'in) Queen," Art Education, vol. 40, no. 5, Sept. 1987, p. 28, repr. (col.) p. 27.

Stiles, Gloria J. and Mary Jo Mermer-Welly, "Children having Children: Art Therapy in a Community-based Early Adolescent Pregnancy Program," Art Therapy: Journal of The American Association, vol. 15, no. 3, 1998, p. 172, fig. 10.

Roberts, Mary Nooter, Facing Africa: The African Art Collection of the Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, 1998, pp. 16-17, repr. (col.).

Exhibition History

Toledo Museum of Art, Student Curators Present: African Art, April 27-July 24, 2012 (Hitchcock Gallery).

Comparative ReferencesSee also Wassing, Rene, African Art, New York, Abrams, 1968, pp. 165-169, esp. p. 167, pl. XXI.

cf. Robbins, Warren M., African Art in American Collections, New YOrk, Praeger, 1966, p. 145, fig. 75.