- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Small ivory mask representing a leopard's head.
- Cultural groups
- Edo
- Date / Period
- Date made: Before 1897
- Date collected
- February 1897
- Acquisition information
- Donated: 1900
- Materials and processes
- Material Animal Ivory Tooth, Process Carved
- Dimensions
- Height: max 200 mm
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 1900.39.20
- 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
- Listed as number 68 on page 10 of Art from the Guinea Coast (Pitt Rivers Museum, Illustrated Catalogue No. 1), Oxford: Pitt Rivers Museum (1965): 'NIGERIA Midwest Region ... 68. Ivory girdle mask of leopard's head with perforations for bronze boss-headed pegs to represent the leopard's spots. Used hanging at the waist belt by the Oba (king) only. Benin City (1900.39.20.) (18.25 cm)'. (For details of exhibition, see under 'Display History'.) [JC 12 9 2013] Listed as no B8/77 on p. 2.1.32 of An Illustrated Catalogue of Benin Art, by Philip J. C. Dark (Boston, MA: G. K. Hall, 1982). [JC] Drawing of this object reproduced as figure 215 on page 198 of Great Benin, Its Customs, Art and Horrors, by H. Ling Roth (Halifax, F. King & Sons, 1903). [LMM 3 1991 ?; JC 7 7 2000]
1900.39.20
Small ivory mask representing a leopard's head.
On display
1900.39.20
Digital asset copyright: Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford
If you wish to order a high-resolution image and/or licence its use for print or web publication, exhibition, film, promotional product or any other use, whether in the academic or commercial sector of any print run, then please visit photographic services.