Armlet

A rare and important cast brass armlet, most probably made in the city of Edo (now Benin City in Nigeria) in the 17th century, possibly as one of a pair intended for a high official or ruler of the Kingdom of Benin.

Cast by the lost-wax technique, the armlet features a pattern whose outstanding motif is the iconic depiction of a Portuguese figure, probably a 16th century officer or soldier, wearing doublet and jerkin of prominent buttons, short hoses and a round hat, his hands raised to the hips and what appears to be a sword in the right hand.

Often adopted for decorating this type of ceremonial objects, depictions of Portuguese figures were imbued with symbolic meaning since foreigners, arriving from the seas, were perceived as links to the sea God Olokun (symbolized by the colour white). As such they were interpreted as protective, almost magical and talismanic figures associated with the great 16th century warrior-king, the oba Esigie (r. 1504-1547), who had Portuguese support in the war against the ata, or king, of Idah, a kingdom that he would conquer and incorporate into his own.[1]

Portrayed with aquiline noses and prominent almond-shaped eyes, as they invariably are in this context, the Portuguese figures alternate standing up and up-side-down, as if creating a pattern, on an openwork ground of double braids and thread-like spirals set near the feet and head of each figure.  The armlet’s edges, defined by running braids, are dotted at regular intervals by sequences of three loops from which bells would be suspended. The same decorative detail is also missing from the spiral’s centres.

The figure’s thread-like character, the braids and the spirals, relate to a manufacturing process that consists in modelling wax threads of even thickness, which are then incised with a stylus, creating the positive template to be moulded in plaster - the negative that becomes the mould from which the metal object will be cast.

As seen from other extant examples, additional manufacturing steps were limited to polishing of casting sprues and air vents, with all excesses remaining intact alongside the openwork motifs.

At court ceremonial occasions, and up to this day, alongside strands and rigid necklaces, headdresses and garments made entirely of a mesh woven with Mediterranean red coral (Coralium rubrum) beads – known as ivie ebo or "European beads", symbols of power, blood, danger and immense wealth introduced to Benin by Portuguese merchants[2] -, rich fabrics, brass hip ornaments and other regalia, the oba, or king, as well as other Benin chieftains, still wear pairs of long cylindrical armlets on performing ritual ceremonial sword (eben) dances, so as to keep the beads from getting entangled while brandishing the sword.

Carved ivory armlets, produced for exclusive use by the king, except during politically weaker reigns, were matched by a cast or hammered brass pair, to be worn by the court elites for throwing the eben ceremonial sword during the annual December Iga festival. This annual festival celebrated the renewal of the oba Ewuare (r. 1440-1473) magical powers or, according to other traditions, his marriage to Ewere.

These brass armlets, a copper and zinc alloy - mistakenly identified as bronze (an alloy of copper and tin), not unlike the plaques which once adorned the palace of the oba -, were commissioned to the Igun Eronmwon or bronze casters guild.

Some other extant lost-wax cast armlets survive in the British Museum collection, albeit of simpler geometric decorative motifs, such as two of banded openwork lattice decoration alternating with spiral friezes (inv. no. Af1920,1106.12 and Af1947,18.50), both similar to the present example in their braided rims set with suspension loops for bells. One other similarly decorated with bands of openwork lattice alternating with wide six-threaded braids (inv. no. Af1954,23.360), or yet a fourth of five complex design bands of three-threaded braids.

Combining the openwork lattice with Portuguese figures, although careless in their depiction, which is mostly iconic and abstract, mention should be made of an armlet, albeit dated to the nineteenth-century, from the Perls collection, today in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. no. 1991.17.150).[3]