Cameroonian Figural Ring Depicting Bird

A round ring with a plump bird whose wing is a tidy spiral.

This figural bronze ring depicting a bird is from Cameroon, Central Africa, and dates to the 20th century. It is cast bronze. In lost-wax casting, a model is made in wax, covered in clay, and heated so that the wax melts away and molten metal can fill the cavity. A smooth, slim loop supports a rounded bird figure with a stout curved beak and a button eye. Its wing is shown as a coil of fine grooves. The metal is mottled brown and green with bright yellow patches where the surface is rubbed. It is 1 inches wide, 1 deep and 2 high.

Round, ruffled and quite proud of its swirl.