Hulman Pavilion, Floor 3

Wunmonije Compound, Ife, Torso of a king, Early-mid-16th century, C.E. Copper alloy. Museum for African Art/Fundación Botín. © National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Nigeria. Photographs: Karin L. Willis

Technically and visually the artworks of ancient Ife, the ancient Yoruba city state, are among the most remarkable in the world, including near life-size heads and figures of humans in terra cotta and bronze, some cast of nearly pure copper. Dynasty and Divinity: Ife in Ancient Nigeria features the artistic accomplishments of this unique 12^th- to 15^th-century civilization in what is today southwestern Nigeria, and examines how factors of dynastic power and divine authority shaped the exceptional arts from Ife.

View the Dynasty and Divinity exhibition microsite.

Dynasty and Divinity: Ife Art in Ancient Nigeria is co-organized by the Museum for African Art, New York, and Fundación Botín, Santander, Spain, in collaboration with the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Nigeria.

The exhibition has been supported, in part, by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts, and by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and Humanities.

Conservation at the Spanish Patrimony Conservation Centre is supported, in part, by Fundación Botín.

Locally the exhibition is underwritten by a grant from the Eli Lilly and Company Foundation.

Free for IMA Members.