Artist:                     Unidentified, Benin ²

Title:                       Untitled

Date:                       Late 19^th Century

Medium:                Primitive Relief Sculpture

Materials:              Carved Ebony

Markings:              Images of the Cycle of Human Native Life

Dimensions:          18” high,

Framed:                  No, item stands upright on three (3) legs.

Memo:                    One of the three legs of the sculpture were repaired in 1953)

Provenance:          Neal Adair Prince Trust u/a/d 10.18.1999

Mr. Neal Prince

Mr. Neal Prince and Mr. Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr.¹

Mr. Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr.

Footnote ¹:

Footnote ²:            BENIN. Present day Benin was the site of Dahomey, a prominent West African kingdom that rose in the 15^th century. The territory became a French Colony in 1872 and achieved independence on 1^st August 1960, as the republic of Benin. A succession of military governments ended in 1972 with the rise to power of Mathieu Kerekou and the establishment of a government base on Marxist-Leninist principles. A move to representative government began in 1989. Two years later, free elections ushered in former Prime Minister Nicephore Soglo as president, marking the first successful transfer of power in Africa from a dictatorship to a democracy. Kerekou was returned to power by elections held in 1996 and 2001.