Focus on Hip Ornament: Leopard Head and explore the Provenance.
This piece originated in the Court of Benin and was created sometime between the 16th and 19th centuries. It was then taken by the British military in 1897 when they were on a punitive expedition and took thousands of pieces of art from the Kingdom of Benin. It was at the J.C. Steven’s auction in 1900, before it was acquired by James T. Hooper around 1945 in Oxford, UK. It was noted to be present at Christie’s British auction house in 1976. It then ended up in the hands of Mr. and Mrs. Klaus G. Perls of New York in 1981. They gifted it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1991.
Christie’s Metropolitan Museum of Art Kingdom of Benin Court of Benin punitive expedition