| Bronze Head of Queen Idia | |
|---|---|
 The head, on display at the British Museum. | |
| Material | "Bronze", actually Brass and Iron. |
| Size | height:41cm width:15.5cm depth:17.5cm |
| Weight | 3.9kg |
| Created | Sixteenth century AD |
| Discovered | Benin City |
| Present location | British Museum |
| Registration | Af1897,1011.1 |
| Culture | Benin Court Art |
| Description applies to only one of four, similar, works believed to depict the same individual. | |
The Bronze Head of Queen Idia is a commemorative bronze head from the medieval Kingdom of Benin in West Africa that probably represents Idia, mother of Oba Esigie, made during the early sixteenth century at the Benin court. Many Benin works of art entered the European art market after the Benin Expedition of 1897 – Four cast bronze heads of the queen are known and are currently in the collections of the British Museum in London,[1] the World Museum in Liverpool,[2] the Nigerian National Museum in Lagos,[3] and the Ethnological Museum of Berlin.[4]
- ^ "commemorative head | British Museum". The British Museum. Retrieved 24 May 2021.
- ^ Accession number 27.11.99.8. Kingdon, Zachary (2019). Ethnographic collecting and African agency in early colonial West Africa : a study of trans-imperial cultural flows. New York. p. 132. ISBN 978-1-5013-3793-2. OCLC 1062395773.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Picture of Lagos head Archived 2 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Memorial head of a queen mother". Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Archived from the original on 14 June 2017.