The above Ekoi (Ejagham) headdress (height: 37 cm) from the Alberto Galaverni collection was offered for sale by Koller on 11 December. Estimated at CHF 5,000 – CHF 10,000, it made a suprising CHF 41,000 (without costs) – that’s eight times the low estimate or € 33,5K and thus worth a mention.
It is somewhat related to an Ekoi headdress (without horns), collected ca. 1860 by Frederick Wolff, currently at the Denver Art Museum (illustrated below); one of the earliest collected examples.
UPDATE: I received some messages to inform me that the Denver Art Museum’s headdress is at least one or two generations earlier; I do agree. There are multiple other examples that are from the same generation, but I prefered to illustrate this particular headdress due to its early collection date. Apparently the Galaverni headdress was bought by a French dealer – probably inspired by the result of Allan Stone’s Ekoi headdress.
