Ceremonial knife with brass handle and scabbard · Nigeria, Vere / Nigeria-Cameroon border area, Bata · ID: 3051284
sold
EUR 450
Provenance
Erwin & Susanne Melchardt, Vienna, AustriaSize
L: 46,5 cm
L: 18.3 inch
Description
steel,
The handle and the openwork scabbard are elaborately worked in the so-called “lost wax casting”. In contrast, the steel blade is extremely roughly forged.
Neyt remarked to a similar knife: “These beautiful weapons have been manufactured within a small ethnic group of the Bata territory of the Kapsiki and the Higi territory, north-east of Tiv territory”. (Neyt, 1985, p. 206)
Comparing literature
Neyt, François, The Arts of the Benue, Michigan 1985, p. 205, ill. IV.55