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1900.39.25

Coconut cup carved on the outer surface with interlaced parallel lines.

1900.39.25

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Collection type
Object
Description
Coconut cup carved on the outer surface with interlaced parallel lines.
Geographical reference
Nigeria
Africa > Western Africa > Nigeria
Benin City
Cultural groups
Edo
Date / Period
Date made: Before 1897
Date collected
February 1897
Acquisition information
Donated: 1900
Materials and processes
Material Coconut Husk Plant, Process Carved
Dimensions
Height: max 75 mm, Diameter: max 75 mm
Object numbers
Accession number: 1900.39.25
Research and responses

This object is part of a collection documented as ‘from Benin city, taken during the punitive expedition under Admiral Rawson, February, 1897’. The objects in the collection were acquired by Mary Henrietta Kingsley before her death in June 1900. They were bequeathed to her brother Charles G. Kingsley, with the understanding that they would be transferred to the Pitt Rivers Museum after his death, however he arranged for them to be immediately presented to the Museum, where they entered the collection in September 1900. [JMC 14/04/2023]

Associated publications
Possibly the source of the ‘guilloche design on carved coconut...based on a coconut in the Pitt-Rivers [sic] Museum, Oxford’ reproduced as figure i, illustration 200, plate 79 (see also note on page 109) in An Introduction to Benin Art and Technology, by Philip J. C. Dark (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973) (see also 1900.39.26 and 1909.67.18). [JC 17 5 1997] Apparently not listed in Philip J. C. Dark, An Illustrated Catalogue of Benin Art, Boston, MA: G. K. Hall, 1982.

Search terms: Vessel, Food and Drink, Cup, Food Accessory