Page 189 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

two incomplete examples, of which only the (Dark 1973, pi. 8 left, and Vogel 1985, no. 80). belt by several horsemen carved on the saltcellars
central sections survive (Bassani and Fagg 1988, Attribution to Benin artists is possible not only of the second type. Oriental weaponry was cer-
nos. 114-116). because these stylistic details—particularly the tainly common among the Portuguese, as Vasco
On this saltcellar the four human figures are similarities between the horsemen on some salt- da Gama had reached India in 1498.
skillfully alternated in frontal and three-quarter cellars of the second type and the figure of a The Bini-Portuguese saltcellars also show ele-
poses to emphasize movement. This is the most Portuguese horseman on the surface of a tusk ments typical of Manueline decoration, for exam-
intriguing stylistic trait of the fifteen Bini salt- destined for the altar of the Oba's ancestors, even ple, the rows of beads used to render the rivets
cellars; most of the figures are represented in though this piece is of later date (London 1980, lot of the armor and other details of costume and the
movement, unlike the figures on Sapi-Portuguese 24) —but also because of the close correspondence lotus flowers carved on the stockings of the fig-
saltcellars as well as those in classic Benin art and of details of the saltcellars to traditional Benin ures seen frontally. This is a typical Indian motif
in African art in general. This unusual manner works in ivory and brass, in particular the ears in going back to Vedic tradition, adopted in Indo-
of rendering the human figure, common only to the shape of leaves and the tack of the horses. Portuguese architecture to decorate teak beams
the saltcellars and to a few Bini figures of cross- The frontal figures on the saltcellar shown here (Mendes Pinto 1983, nos. 156,157) as well as in
bowmen and harquebusiers cast in brass, has wear sumptuous costumes, and in their monu- Manueline decoration, as can be seen in the rich
suggested the possibility that a Portuguese mentality evince a close relationship to contem- portal of the church of Viana in the Alentejo.
"commissioner/teacher" could have introduced porary images of important figures in Portuguese These elements suggest the first half of the
this convention to Bini figurative art. After his society. See, for example, the portrait of Afonso sixteenth century as the period when these salt-
departure or death, this foreign motif would have de Albuquerque, viceroy of the Indies, painted cellars were created.
been abandoned. in Goa in the sixteenth century and now in the The ship carved on the lid is not a caravel,
The double-chambered form of the saltcellars Museu Nacional de Arte Amiga in Lisbon. the ship used by the Portuguese in the sixteenth
bears no resemblance to traditional works from The three-quarter figures wear a kind of light century for ocean voyages, but an urea, a type
Benin; The standing figures carved on them also armor with metal plates fastened by rivets, which of freighter common in Portugal and northern
have no precise iconographical equivalent in tradi- was common in Europe beginning in the second Europe until the middle of the preceding cen-
tiorial sculpture from the ancient Nigerian king- half of the fifteenth century. The four figures tury — an identification that we owe to Admiral
dom, with the exception of some facial details (the hold swords with handles decorated with a large Vasco Viegas of the Marine Museum in Lisbon.
eyes and mouth, for example) and some decorative pommel, a type widely used in Europe between The image must therefore have been copied from
motifs, such as the basket weave and lozenge pat- the end of the fifteenth and the first half of the a drawing or print, but the detail of the sailor in
terns that were part of the artistic vocabulary of sixteenth centuries. The lances, according to the crow's nest, rendered in a narrative manner
the Igbesanmwan. See, for example, the Portu- Claude Blair, could be an Indian style because of unlike the imposing figures of the lower register,
guese figures carved on the ivory bracelets in the the way the blade is fixed to the shaft; also pos- has the character of an observed detail and could
Museum of Mankind and the Monzino Collection sibly of Indian origin are the daggers worn at the have been added by the carver. E.B.

188 CIRCA 1492