Rare commemorative sculpture "Elephant" of a dignitary. Dakakari, Nigeria. H 83cm made of beige terracotta with columnar legs standing on a sphere, the ears designed as a large disc forming a three-quarter circle; the tail is indicated as a small cone. The Dakakari are a small ethnic group in the hills of the Zuru Federation in the Northwestern State of Nigeria. Their main occupation was agriculture and military service. In art history, the Dakakari have become famous for their terracotta tomb sculptures, which are placed on the graves of important personalities such as village chiefs, war heroes, great hunters, heads of the secret men's society Oknuh, the head of the blacksmiths, etc. Ordinary citizens only receive simple household utensils as a memento on their burial mound. There are six different categories of terracotta, including animals, people and equestrian figures - the elephants, however, are the most expensive and the largest; the Dakakari potters' great capacity for abstraction is particularly expressive here. An almost identical elephant can be found in the Museum Fünf Kontinente in Munich and is illustrated in M. Kecskési, African Masterpieces from Munich: The Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde (1997) no. 169; K.-F. Schaedler, Afrikanische Kunst von der Frühzeit bis heute (1997), p. 261, no. 507; ders., Encyclopedia of African Art and Culture (2009) p. 166. intact. Provenance: Acquired in the 1970s in Cotonou, Benin.