Afro-Portuguese Ivory Oliphant

Afro-Portuguese Ivory Oliphant - now in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra - image 1

Attributed to the Master of the Arms of Castile and Aragon
Sherbro or Bullom peoples, Sierra Leone
Ivory
c.1500 AD
Length: 71 cm

Provenance
Ferdinand II (1452–1516), King of Aragon, Sicily and Naples, and Isabella I (1451–1504), Queen of Castile and León
Charles V, King Charles I of Spain, (1500–1566) (by descent from the above)
Philip II (1527–1598), King of Spain  and jure uxoris King of England and Ireland during his marriage to Queen Mary (by descent from the above)
George Ashby, Quenby Hall, Naseby, Northamptonshire
Albert Edward John Spencer, 7th Earl Spencer, Althorp, Northamptonshire (by bequest from the above, 1802)
Edward John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer (by descent from the above, 1975)
Phillips, Son & Neale, London, circa 1975
Entwistle, London (acquired at the above auction)
K.J. Hewett, England (acquired from the above)
Baron Frederic (Freddy) Rolin, Brussels and New York (acquired from the above)
Entwistle, London (acquired from the above)
National Gallery of Australia, (acquired from the above, 1978)

Selected Exhibition History
10 May-20 June, 1978, New York, F. Rolin & Co., African Ivories
18 November, 1988-9 April, 1989, New York, The Center for African Art, Africa and the Renaissance: Art in Ivory
6 May-20 August, 1989, Houston, TX, The Museum of Fine Arts, Africa and the Renaissance: Art in Ivory
Permanent Collection, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
[Acc. No. NGA 79.2148.A-B]

Selected Publication History
A.J. Hipkins, Musical Instruments, Historique, Rare and Unique, Edinburgh, 1888
Adalbert Svoboda, Illustrierte Musikgeschichte, Stuttgart, 1892-93, vol. 2, Pl. XVI, p. 63
Mário de Sampayo Ribeiro, 'O Olifante de Drumond Castle', in: Panorama: Revue Portugaise d'Art et Tourisme, IV, 9 (1964), pp. 100-101, 103, 109, 139-141
Mário de Sampayo Ribeiro, 'O Olifante de Drumond Castle', in: Ocidente, Volume LXVII, no. 6, 1964, pp. 252-259
F. Rolin & Co., African Ivories, New York, 1978, p. 8 and 9, cat. 2
Ezio Bassani and William B. Fagg, Africa and the Renaissance: Art in Ivory, New York, 1988, p. 100, fig. 112; p. 139, fig. 177; and p. 234, cat. 75

Acquired from Entwistle by
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra