A spoon carved from ivory; the handle is split and twisted, sideways perforated and has a rhombic pattern. On top of the handle there is a bird with a rhombic pattern. The bird has a long, pointed and bent beak.
The spoon is a Benin-Portuguese ivory and so an object that has been produced in the former Kingdom of Benin but has been commissioned by Europeans for the European market. Probably the Edo or Yoruba people produced it.
The object was acquired by the Ulm merchant Christoph Weickmann for his cabinet of curiosities and is mentioned in the inventory for Weickmann's collection of 1659. From where he obtained the non-European objects is unknown except for one case and not researchable due to missing sources. What is certain, however, is that Weickmann didn't gain them on site by himself. He must have gotten them from middlemen because he didn't travel outside of Europe.
The remains of the collection Weickmann came into possession of the city of Ulm between 1785 and 1825 and were deposited with the Association for Arts and Antiquities in Ulm and Upper Swabia since 1857. At the end of the 19th century the objects came, together with the collection of the Antiquities Society, into the newly founded Gewerbemuseum (Museum of Applied Arts) and 1925 into the Museum of the City of Ulm.
en
