Olowe of Ise
Palace Door
Yoruba Poeples, Nigeria
c. 1904-10

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Olowe of Ise is considered by many art historians and art collectors to be the most important Yoruba artist of the 20th century. He was active in the first quarter of the century and designed and carved architectural sculptures for several palaces.

His approach to carving was innovative in that he worked in high and uneven relief. The figures on this panel, the right side of a door, project in profile from the background by as much as 4 inches. The upper bodies of some figures are caved completely in the round. Instead of using static, frontal poses, Olowe turned the heads of the figures in opposition to their bodies to face the viewer. He crossed their legs to suggest they were walking or dancing.

This panel commemorates an actual event when the king of Ise received the first British traveling commissioners. The panel shows the king and his entourage. The king is in the second register mounted on his horse. He has a conical crown with a bird on the top and is accompanied by a court messenger and a musician. Royal wives and children, guards, priests, and others from the palace appear in the other registers. The female in the lowest register is a human sacrifice, an act committed on the rarest occasions to insure the survival of the community.

Olowe carved the door from iroko, an iron-hard wood highly valued in his time and still used in modern building construction and furniture making.