Hand Coil
1800s
- Medium
- Copper alloy
- Classification
- Tools and Equipment
- Dimensions
- Diameter: 11.5 cm (4 1/2 in.)
- Culture
- Nigeria, Benin Kingdom, Ẹdo peoples, members of the Igun Eronmwon (royal brasscasters) guild
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, African Art
- Credit line
- Gift of Katherine C. White
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
While this looks like a bracelet, it wasn’t worn around a wrist. A chief or titleholder grasped this “hand coil” vertically during the annual Iguẹ festival, during which such men reaffirm their relationship to the Ọba, whose mystical powers are strengthened. An image of a man’s head caps each end of the thick, twisted metal. Repeated human touch rubbed the undecorated lengths bright and shiny. Though small, the coil’s detail is enormous: to capture it, the artist incised the designs in wax during the casting process. They show these men are elites, with necklaces, caps, and whisker-like facial markings.
