Ife bronze heads cast

c. 1300 · Work

In the Yoruba city of Ife, sculptors cast copper-alloy heads of such serene naturalism that when one reached Europe in 1938, scholars refused to believe it was African — inventing lost Greeks to explain it. The heads, probably royal portraits, are now recognised as one of the summits of world sculpture, made while Gothic Europe was still carving stiff saints.