87 - KNELT FIGURE, IN THE STYLE OF THE NOK CULTURE - Nigeria - Nok

KNELT FIGURE, IN THE STYLE OF THE NOK CULTURE - Nigeria - Nok In the style of the Nok culture. Terracotta. Dimensions: H. 60 cm. A seated terracotta figure displaying the stylistic characteristics associated with the Nok corpus: a large, elongated head, a domed skull marked by a median suture line, almond-shaped eyes with perforated pupils, incised arched eyebrows, and nostrils and mouth modeled with pronounced relief. The limbs are rendered in annular bands. Seated posture, with the head resting on the folded right forearm and the legs bent. Between the 1940s and 1970s, British archaeologist William Fagg and his excavation teams collected more than a hundred terracotta fragments from open-pit tin mines in Nigeria. He named this culture “Nok,” referring to the village where the archaeological discoveries were made. Condition: Very good overall condition, with a small chip on the right foot. Documentation: Schaedler, *Earth and Ore: 2,500 Years of African Art in Terra-cotta and Metal*, 1997; Bernard de Grunne, *Dreams of Beauty: African Sculptures from the Blanpain Collection*, 2005. Note: The Nok culture is traditionally dated from the 1st millennium BCE to the first half of the 1st millennium CE. This chronology applies to the reference corpus and does not constitute a dating of this specific piece. Research and Documentation: Coryse Mwape – Art historian specializing in ancient African art. Internal Ref.: 1222