Head of Oni

Ife's art is characterized by the beauty and balance of its lines and by a penetrating realism and a swrenity that seems to emanate from kings and queens in all their representations.

A reduced head of an Oni, king of ife, with its characteristic crown on the head on whose forehead stands a plume. Today the king of ife wears the same crown representative of his function, formed by a vertical segment braided and topped on its tip by a pointed bulge. This type of head was placed on a wooden effigy, dressed, to represent the deceased king during funerals and then buried after the ceremony in a shrine near the palace. The grooves of the neck are still today considered a sign of beauty among the Yoruba. Ritual striated scarifications pierce his face. Still today there are those who make this kind of scarification. Thick lips and awake countenance, of the person who is listening to his interlocutor. By the thinness of the thickness of its walls it seems an anerior piece to the century XIX, only the thermoluminescence test can offer accurate dating.