On view
European Art
Spoon handle,
16th century
Artist unrecorded
Northern Edo or Yoruba artist
Northern Edo or Yoruba artist
Edo | Yorùbá
2016-666
Soon after the Portuguese established trading networks in West Africa in the late fifteenth century, Edo and Yorùbá carvers created long-handled ivory spoons modeled after wood, pewter, and silver examples imported into the region. This spoon handle, possibly representing a dog and a monkey, would have surmounted a now-lost shallow spoon bowl. Ivory utensils were carved by artisanal guilds in the Benin and Ọwọ kingdoms, in present-day Nigeria, as elite objects for export to Europe. Their entry into European collections in the sixteenth century evinces the trade relationships between West African and European kingdoms. References to “Bini-Portuguese” spoons, as they are commonly known, appeared, for example, in the property list of Cosimo I de’ Medici, grand duke of Tuscany, in 1560.
Information
Title
Spoon handle
Dates
16th century
Maker
Medium
Ivory
Dimensions
h. 11.3 cm., w. 1.5 cm., d. 1.9 cm. (4 7/16 x 9/16 x 3/4 in.)
Credit Line
Bequest of Gillett G. Griffin
Object Number
2016-666
Place Made
Africa, Nigeria, Benin or Ọwọ Kingdom
Culture
Materials
Techniques
Subject
[Mathias Komor Works of Fine Art, New York, NY]; Gillett G. Griffin (1928-2016), Princeton, NJ, by 1967; loaned to the Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ, 1967; bequeathed to the Princeton University Art Museum, 2016.
- Peter Mark, "Is There Such a Thing as African Art?," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 58, no. 1/2 (1999): 7–15., p. 14, fig. 6
- "Selected checklist of objects in the collection of African art," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 58, no. 1/2 (1999): p. 77–83., p. 78
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 65 (illus.)
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 65
