拍品专文
It is impossible for any photograph to do justice to this remarkable armlet. The flawless casting of a spiral of copper and brass is not immediately evident in a photograph, although the combination of these metals is found in other artefacts of Benin origin - for instance in a cylindrical armlet with alternating snakes and Portuguese heads in copper on an engraved brass ground in the Perls collection (Ezra, 1992, p. 186, no. 78), and a ram-head hip mask (Christie's, 26 April 1977, lot 228) with applied copper borders to the brow, as well as the engraved copper panel down the nose. Professor Willett has informed us of a pair of bracelets cast in copper and bronze in the Ife Museum that were found in Ife (see Werner and Willett, 1975, Pl.5). Dark suggests that the copper would have been prepared and set into the wax from which the brass would have been cast (Dark, 1973, p. 50). The hooded lids of the crocodile eyes are higher and more narrow than can be indicated in the photograph, and are a remarkable combination of brass and copper.
Such mastery of mixed casting techniques would have been available to the casters in Benin City during the "revival" period of Akenzua I and Eresonyen, that is to say at the end of the 17th century and beginning of the 18th century, a date that would be supported by the engraved grounds which appear to have been so popular at that period. William Fagg suggested a date from the middle of the 17th century to the beginning of the 18th century for the ram-head hip mask, and the possibility that is was cast by an Owo craftman in Benin. For a bracelet with overlapping crocodile heads in the Perls collection (op. cit., p. 189, no. 83) he suggested an early 18th century date and that it was "very possibly" worn by Eresonyen himelf. None of the figures on the plaques appears to wear such elaborate armlets, which would support a date after 1640, and the mastery of the technique would preclude a date after 1800, when the emphasis appeared to be on the massive volume of the brass castings, rather than on refined details of workmanship.
The crocodile is regarded as the "policeman of the water" and messenger of Olokun, god of great waters, the most popular and widely-worshipped deity in Benin City. They are part of a visual vocabulary of Olokun which alludes to the arrival, the wealth and the power of the Portuguese. Olokun's palace is considered a source of wealth, fecundity and beauty in all its forms. Chambers (Ben-Amos and Rubin, 1983, p. 94) gives a resumé of the prominent role of crocodiles in the corpus of Benin bronzes, and suggests that the heads are used as a metaphor for power.
Such mastery of mixed casting techniques would have been available to the casters in Benin City during the "revival" period of Akenzua I and Eresonyen, that is to say at the end of the 17th century and beginning of the 18th century, a date that would be supported by the engraved grounds which appear to have been so popular at that period. William Fagg suggested a date from the middle of the 17th century to the beginning of the 18th century for the ram-head hip mask, and the possibility that is was cast by an Owo craftman in Benin. For a bracelet with overlapping crocodile heads in the Perls collection (op. cit., p. 189, no. 83) he suggested an early 18th century date and that it was "very possibly" worn by Eresonyen himelf. None of the figures on the plaques appears to wear such elaborate armlets, which would support a date after 1640, and the mastery of the technique would preclude a date after 1800, when the emphasis appeared to be on the massive volume of the brass castings, rather than on refined details of workmanship.
The crocodile is regarded as the "policeman of the water" and messenger of Olokun, god of great waters, the most popular and widely-worshipped deity in Benin City. They are part of a visual vocabulary of Olokun which alludes to the arrival, the wealth and the power of the Portuguese. Olokun's palace is considered a source of wealth, fecundity and beauty in all its forms. Chambers (Ben-Amos and Rubin, 1983, p. 94) gives a resumé of the prominent role of crocodiles in the corpus of Benin bronzes, and suggests that the heads are used as a metaphor for power.