"Stellen die Idia Elfenbein Masken wirklich Frauen dar oder doch eher Männer?”*1
From left to right: the mask in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the modern reproduction created for the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC '77); and the original mask in the British Museum, whose refusal to lend the celebrated "Idia Mask" to Nigeria prompted the production of the FESTAC version.*2
If we examine the ornamental borders in the upper register of these masks, we encounter either miniature portraits of Portuguese figures—as on the central and right-hand examples—or, in the case of the Metropolitan Museum mask, an alternating sequence of Portuguese heads and representations of mudfish. Both motifs are well known from the Benin bronze plaques, where they appear almost exclusively in association with obas, warriors, and other expressions of royal authority. Their iconographic context is therefore unmistakably masculine.
The bronze portraits of Idia, identifiable beyond doubt as representations of the Queen Mother by their distinctive high, braided coiffure, present a striking contrast. In the arabesques decorating their pedestal bases, one does not find Portuguese heads or mudfish. Instead, they are typically adorned with ordinary fish and other ornamental motifs, but specifically not mudfish.
On the Benin plaques, Portuguese figures signify the kingdom's commercial and diplomatic relations with Portugal and function as emblems of wealth, prestige, and international power. The mudfish, by contrast, is so intimately associated with the Oba himself that in numerous royal representations his legs merge into the bodies of these remarkable amphibious creatures, symbolising his capacity to inhabit both the human and the spiritual realms simultaneously.
Felicity Bodenstein has devoted extensive scholarly attention to the five Idia ivory masks, both in a lecture delivered in 2019 at the Technical University of Berlin, which I attended, and in an unpublished study addressing the same subject.
How, then, does Bodenstein address the question posed by the distinctly masculine iconography of the arabesques surrounding these three masks, which she regards as objects of central importance for the construction of Nigerian national identity?
The identification of the ivory masks as portraits of the Iyoba Idia and the interpretation of their border ornamentation have generally been discussed as separate issues. Yet the tension between the central female portrait and the overwhelmingly masculine imagery of the surrounding motifs has, to the best of my knowledge, never itself become the subject of sustained scholarly analysis.
For Bodenstein, the five ivory masks constitute a coherent ensemble that has been identified with Idia at least since the mid-twentieth century and has assumed a central role in the formation of Nigeria's national iconography. Her principal concern lies with the "biography" of these objects: their creation, their looting during the British Punitive Expedition of 1897, their subsequent dispersal among Western collections, and their later political and symbolic reappropriation within postcolonial Nigeria.
Remarkably, however, neither her 2019 lecture nor her later publication appears to offer a detailed iconographic analysis of the masks' arabesques. Although the Portuguese heads and mudfish are acknowledged, they are not examined from the perspective of possible gender coding.
It is precisely here, I would argue, that an important scholarly question remains unanswered.
My own observations may be summarised as follows.
The hairstyle corresponds closely to that of the well-known bronze heads of the Iyoba. On this point there is little room for doubt.
The surrounding arabesques, however—at least on the masks in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the British Museum—consist of Portuguese miniature heads and mudfish. On the Benin bronze plaques, both motifs occur almost exclusively within the royal iconography of the Oba.
The mudfish is by no means an ordinary fish. Rather, it symbolises the King's dual nature, reflecting his existence in both the human and the spiritual worlds. On numerous royal bronzes, the Oba's legs even transform into mudfish, a visual metaphor that belongs unmistakably to the ideological language of kingship.
Likewise, the Portuguese figures depicted on the bronze plaques are almost invariably associated with royal trade, political authority, military strength, and supernatural wealth. Here, too, the symbolism is fundamentally that of male sovereignty.
By contrast, these motifs are absent from the recognised bronze portraits of the Iyoba. Their pedestal decorations instead feature ordinary fish or other ornamental designs, but never the distinctive combination of Portuguese heads and mudfish.
It therefore appears that the border ornamentation does not primarily define the identity of the person represented at the centre of the mask. Rather, it articulates the authority and ideological status of the individual who wore the object.
Such an interpretation differs from the conventional museum narrative.
My hypothesis is that the masks were probably not worn by Idia herself, but rather by her son, Oba Esigie, or by other high-ranking dignitaries, either as pectoral pendants or, more plausibly, as hip ornaments during important royal ceremonies. If this were the case, the iconographic composition becomes remarkably coherent:
the face represents the deified Queen Mother;
the surrounding arabesques express the royal ideology of the Oba;
the object as a whole functions as a royal insignia.
Such a reading would explain why symbols of male kingship surround the image of a female figure.
The standard literature—including the writings of Barbara Blackmun and the interpretation offered by the Metropolitan Museum of Art—understands the Portuguese heads as references to Idia's ability to guide Portuguese trade for the benefit of her son. The mudfish, likewise, is interpreted as symbolising her mediating role between political and spiritual spheres.
This, however, is essentially a functional interpretation. It does not answer the iconographic question of why the border is composed almost exclusively of motifs that elsewhere belong so consistently to the visual language of the Oba.
Equally unresolved is the question of whether these objects were worn as pectoral pendants or as hip masks. The latter appears more likely, suggesting that they formed part of the regalia of the Oba or other members of the highest ranks of the court.
Their extraordinary rarity, by contrast, may owe less to their original function than to the aura created by museum narratives and to the enduring legend that they were taken from a chest in the Oba's private sleeping chamber during the British Punitive Expedition of 1897.
The numerous bronze fragments documented by the Digital Benin project paint a rather different picture of what was actually left behind in Benin City after the conquest. These are largely fragments that any bronze caster of the period would ordinarily have remelted rather than preserved. The story of discovering the masks in the King's private chamber belongs instead to a familiar genre of victorious narratives, in which the conqueror claims access to the most intimate spaces of the defeated ruler. Such stories often acquire an authority of their own and continue to shape historical memory—not necessarily because they are demonstrably true, but because they fit compelling narratives of triumph, prestige, or moral outrage.
To return briefly to Felicity Bodenstein's 2019 lecture in Berlin: it remains entirely possible that she addressed this issue during her oral presentation. I can no longer recall the details with certainty. In her published essay, however, I find no extended discussion of whether the predominantly masculine iconography of the surrounding arabesques complicates—or perhaps even modifies—the traditional identification of these ivory masks as representations of the Iyoba Idia.
The masks, of course, do not depict men. Their distinctive coiffures unmistakably correspond to those of the well-known bronze representations of Idia, crowned by their characteristic braided headdress. It therefore seems more plausible that the objects deliberately unite two complementary levels of meaning: the female portrait of the Queen Mother and the masculine symbolism of royal authority associated with the Oba.
Indeed, this very contrast between a female visage and an iconography of male kingship appears to have received remarkably little scholarly attention, especially considering its potential significance.
For some time I have attempted, without success, to locate photographs of the reverse sides of all five masks. Such images could prove crucial for determining whether these objects were originally conceived as hip ornaments. Interestingly, the modern ivory mask produced for the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC '77) is fitted with a suspension loop of the type commonly associated with hip masks. Curiously, however, if worn in this manner, the mask would appear upside down on the wearer's body.
One might take this almost as a metaphor: with regard to these five—or, including the FESTAC reproduction, six—masks, much still appears to be standing on its head. Among the unresolved questions is whether the "ensemble" proclaimed by Felicity Bodenstein should also be subjected to systematic scientific investigation employing material analysis and technical examination.
Is the attribution of these five or six ivory masks to an idealised image of Idia truly supported by compelling iconographic evidence? Or does it rather reflect a scholarly tradition that, within the framework of postcolonial provenance research, has gradually acquired the status of an unquestioned canon?
It may also prove fruitful to compare the Idia ivory masks with the celebrated sculptural group conventionally identified as depicting Oba Esigie together with his mother, Idia.
The celebrated Idia ivory masks and the sculptural group representing Oba Esigie and his mother appear to follow a common visual logic—one that cannot be adequately described through the conventional categories of European art history. Considered in the light of Horst Bredekamp's theory of the image, both groups of works seem to function not merely as representations of historical figures or illustrations of political authority, but as images that actively think. Their significance lies not simply in the identification of iconographic motifs, but in the manner in which they organise relationships and draw the viewer into a process of visual cognition.
At first glance, the Idia masks present the idealised face of the Queen Mother. Closer examination, however, reveals that this central image is interwoven with a multitude of additional visual elements. Portuguese heads, mudfish, coral ornaments, and other royal emblems do not constitute decorative embellishment; together they form a complex network of interrelated signs. The female face thus becomes the bearer of political, spiritual, and cosmological forces brought together within a single visual field. The mask is therefore not a portrait in the Western sense but a condensation of relationships. It visualises not an individual person but the very conditions of legitimate royal power.
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A comparable visual logic emerges in the sculptural group depicting Oba Esigie and his mother, Idia. Here, too, the work is not concerned merely with placing two individuals side by side. Seen from the front, the figures appear almost as a single body. Their shared central axis and the fact that only three legs are initially visible create the impression of an indivisible unity, recalling the image of conjoined twins. Only as the viewer moves around the sculpture does the concealed fourth leg gradually come into view, revealing its complete anatomical structure. The sculpture therefore unfolds its meaning not in a single glance but through the temporal process of perception. It demands movement, making the viewer an active participant in the production of meaning.
It is precisely in this respect that the work comes remarkably close to Horst Bredekamp's conception of the Bildakt—the image as an active agent. The sculpture does not simply illustrate an already existing idea; rather, it generates that idea through the act of seeing itself. The relationship between king and queen mother is not explained discursively but is brought into being visually. Unity and duality are not presented as opposites but as simultaneously valid conditions. The image thinks through relationships rather than fixed identities.
This relational conception of the image differs fundamentally from the dominant tradition of European art since classical antiquity. There, the autonomous individual constitutes the primary category of artistic representation. Bodies possess clearly defined anatomical boundaries; persons appear as self-contained entities; and even group portraits preserve the individuality of each figure. Such an image order follows an ontology of separation: man and woman, ruler and subject, subject and object are conceived as distinct and independent categories.
The Benin bronzes and ivory masks, by contrast, embody an ontology of relationship. The king does not exist independently of the Queen Mother; rather, their respective powers together constitute the precondition of legitimate kingship. Masculine and feminine authority do not appear as competing principles but as complementary dimensions of the same cosmological order. This complementarity is not narrated allegorically but inscribed directly into the morphology of the works themselves. The shared bodily axis of the Esigie–Idia sculpture and the fusion of diverse symbols of power on the Idia masks express the same underlying visual principle.
It is particularly striking that such an intertwining of masculine and feminine principles has few genuine parallels within the history of European art. Although the psychology of Carl Gustav Jung introduced the concepts of anima and animus, and Sigmund Freud likewise explored forms of inner sexual duality, these remain essentially psychological models. They rarely find an equivalent expression within the material structure of images themselves. Benin art, by contrast, translates this complementarity directly into visual form. The relationship between masculine and feminine power is understood not as an inner psychic condition but as the publicly visible foundation of political and cosmological order.
This difference may also explain the persistent misunderstandings that have characterised the European reception of Benin art. Under the influence of colonial modes of thought, these works were interpreted primarily as portraits, royal representations, or ethnographic documents. European art history asked above all whom a figure represented or what practical function an object fulfilled. Far less attention was devoted to the question of how the image itself generates meaning. As a consequence, the relational visual logic of Benin art was frequently reduced to individual representation, thereby obscuring much of its conceptual complexity.
Viewed from the perspective of contemporary image theory (Bildwissenschaft), the Idia ivory masks and the Esigie–Idia sculptural group therefore reveal an alternative mode of visual thinking. Their affinity lies not simply in their depiction of historical individuals or royal insignia, but in a shared visual structure that understands identity itself as relational. These works do not merely present two separate bearers of authority; rather, they make visible that royal legitimacy arises from the inseparable union of masculine and feminine forces. They do not simply represent this order—they enact it through the experience of seeing itself.
In this sense, the Idia ivory masks and the Esigie–Idia sculptural group embody a common visual logic that powerfully confirms Horst Bredekamp's concept of the "thinking image" while simultaneously extending it into a distinctly extra-European context. They point towards an art history in which the autonomous individual is no longer the primary point of departure. Instead, relational unity becomes the fundamental principle of artistic thought. Such an insight may also contribute to a critical reassessment of the colonial categories that have long shaped Benin scholarship and allow the intellectual autonomy of African image concepts to emerge with greater clarity.
*1 asked me once a visitor at our gallery
*2 Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture 1977”
*3 Felicity Bodenstein, "Cinq masques de l’Iyoba Idia du royaume de Bénin.."
*4 Horst Bredekamp: Theorie des Bildakts, Suhrkamp 2010, S. 231–233, S. 283–306
*5 Max Imdahls Konzept der Ikonik, Kunst als Ereignis. Ausgewählte Schriften. Herausgegeben von Claudia Blümle und Philipp Kaspar Heimann. Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2025