spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer
AMICO Logo Art Museum Image Consortium: enabling educational use of museum multimedia
spacer
Home
spacer
JoinBenefitsMembersAMICO LibraryContentsTrialSubscribeBenefitsSubscribersUseSchoolsUniversitiesMuseumsDistributespacerAboutDocumentsSearchContactspacer
spacer

AMICO Sample Records


Full view: MIA_.1533c.tif

Ife (Yoruba)

Female Portrait Head, 12th century - 14th century
H.12 x W.5-3/4 x D.7 in.
terra-cotta

Context:
Between the 12th and 14th centuries, the royal city of Ife, in present-day Nigeria, was a center of economic, religious and political power, and its importance was reflected in a highly developed and distinctive sculptural style. Portrait heads modeled in terra-cotta or bronze stood on royal shrines in the palace compound. This head, recently acquired by The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, probably represents a woman of the royal court. The delicate lines on her face show a pattern of scarification, the cutting of designs into the skin to mark identity, status and beauty. The sensitive realism of this portrait is unusual among African art styles which typically present abstracted and generalized representations of the human image. Works of art from Ife are very rare. This superb creation is one of only three in American museum collections.

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts
, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
No. 95.84
The John R. Van Derlip Fund

Index terms
Sculpture


View catalog record in data dictionary format
View catalog record in output format

View metadata record in data dictionary format
View metadata record in output format

Return to the AMICO Examples page

     


In June of 2005, the members of the Art Museum Image Consortium voted to dissolve their collaboration. This site remains online for archival reasons.