A fine Yoruba axe for Ogun

BY CHIEF ROTI (OR ROTIMI), AGBANNA OF OSI-EKITI

Details

A fine Yoruba axe for Ogun
by Chief Roti (or Rotimi), Agbanna of Osi-Ekiti
The shaft carved as a kneeling male figure surmounted by the upper part of a further male figure whose long arms reach down to the rear of the kneeling figure, each figure with hatched bands to the conical coiffure and arms, the oval finial with a mask carved in relief to each side, flared metal blade, fine dark glossy patina
22¾in. (57.5cm.) long

Literature

Drewal, Pemberton and Abiodun, 1989, p.164, Pl.178

Exhibited

The Center for African Art, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; The Cleveland Museum of Art, The New Orleans Museum of Art; and the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, from 1989-1990.
Rietberg Museum, Zurich, 1991, with a dance staff by Rotimi from M.A.A.O., Paris which is illustrated in the catalogue (no. 96)

Lot Essay

Chief Roti Agbanna was one of the best of the former apprentices of the great master carver Dada Aorowogun Yanna of Osi (see William Fagg's note to another axe by him in the sale Christie's, London, 29 June 1983, lot 38) where he suggests that the axes were made for Ogun, god of iron and war, rather than Shango, the god of Thunder, and related to the Alafin of Oyo. Pemberton (op. cit. p.164) observes that the integration of the two figures by the long, slender curve of the arms of the upper figure down the back of the lower one is beautifully rendered.

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