Royal scettro (Makpo). Cultura: Fon popoli, Danhomè unito. Dimensioni: H. 24 7/8 × larg. 8 1/8 × D. 2 1/8 in. (63,2 × 20,6 × 5,4 cm). Data: del XIX secolo. Il braccio di lunghezza scettro è composto da un'anima di legno avvolto in preziosi argento. Il metallo esterno viene applicato come sottili fogli di sovrapposizione di argento inchiodato alla superficie. Il legno fine del personale è ora esposto ma probabilmente era originariamente ricoperta in metallo come bene. L'albero dritto dello scettro progressivamente si addensa e curve in una quasi novanta gradi di arco. Il rafforzamento di questa e di contorno che ornano le estremità del personale è a bulbo fini
Questa immagine potrebbe avere delle imperfezioni perché è storica o di reportage.
Royal Scepter (Makpo). Culture: Fon peoples, Danhomè Kingdom. Dimensions: H. 24 7/8 × W. 8 1/8 × D. 2 1/8 in. (63.2 × 20.6 × 5.4 cm). Date: 19th century. This arm-length scepter is composed of a wooden core wrapped in precious silver. The outer metal is applied as thin overlapping sheets of silver nailed to the surface. The wood end of the staff is now exposed but was probably originally covered in metal as well. The straight shaft of the scepter progressively thickens and curves at an almost ninety-degree arc. Reinforcing this contour and adorning the extremity of the staff is a bulbous finial representing a pineapple carved from a separate piece of wood and affixed to the shaft with a metal peg. Stamped and punched patterns adorning the entire silver surface subtly underscore the different sections of the scepter: tight, short rows of dotted lines on the straight section of the shaft; small indented circles with flurries of small dots on the upper arched part; larger semi-circles in the shape of overlapping leaves on the finial; and straight vertical lines extending upwards as the pineapple leaves. A round sheet of silver, the size of a small coin, is affixed with four nails to the front of that upward extension. This scepter (known among the Fon peoples as makpo, or staff of fury) belongs to a corpus of silver works that served as objects of power and prestige to rulers of the Fon Kingdom of Danhomè in present-day Republic of Benin, a West African nation state. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Kingdom of Danhomè prospered as a major political power and commercial center situated off the Gulf of Guinea. It gained much of its power by playing an active role in the international slave trade. Since the seventeenth century until the conquest of the kingdom by France in 1894, generations of Danhomè kings served as great patrons for the arts, often commissioning items to enhance their own royal status, or to commemorate their predecessors. They oversaw
