CMA: African Art
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cmaafrican.bsky.social
CMA: African Art
@cmaafrican.bsky.social
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Sharing public domain works from the African Art department of the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Automated thanks to @andreitr.bsky.social and @botfrens.bsky.social
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Male figure https://clevelandart.org/art/2016.57
Realized in a very distinctive style using the lost-wax method, this figure’s cultural origin and function is limited because it was exported from Nigeria during that country’s turbulent civil war of the late 1960s. Perhaps it was once part of an altar or shrine dedicated to a guardian or tutelary spirit. Connotations of prestige and wealth may explain why copper-alloy objects were diffused across vast territory and inherited over many generations.
December 12, 2025 at 6:35 PM
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Head https://clevelandart.org/art/1990.22
Before they died, Akan royal family members commissioned terracotta portraits, including heads like this one, from female artists. After royal burials, these idealized substitutes were placed in sacred groves outside the village where they were the focus of periodic libations, offerings, and prayers. The knobs on the head imitate a once popular male hairstyle having a tufted pattern.
December 12, 2025 at 2:31 PM
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Male Figure https://clevelandart.org/art/2003.36
Hungaan figures of this size served as guardians of ritual shrines and functioned in rituals to promote fertility, guarantee well-being, and ensure longevity. The striking crested hairstyle imitates a real coiffure or a wig, indicative of status and prestige. The hands supporting the chin identify the figure as a chief who is immersed in thought and contemplation, pondering over his responsibilities.
December 12, 2025 at 11:33 AM
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Ring https://clevelandart.org/art/1916.141
Ring
December 11, 2025 at 8:02 PM
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Female Figure https://clevelandart.org/art/2010.452
Songye figures were used as devices for protection, healing, or therapy. The value of such objects resided in magical substances most commonly concealed in the abdominal cavity or in a horn set into the skull. The mixture of ingredients was meant to solicit the powers of the spirit world. Both the sculpture's height and its gender suggest that it was owned and used by an individual, possibly even a woman. Although some have attributed its particular style—characterized by geometric volumes and an almost Cubist appearance—to a subgroup living along the Sankuru River, the regional attribution of any figure on stylistic grounds is always tentative given the itinerant nature of artists.
December 11, 2025 at 2:26 PM
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Female Bowl-Bearing Figure https://clevelandart.org/art/2010.454
Filled with white chalk—a symbol of the moon, purity, renewal, and the spirit world—this bowl-bearing figure functioned as an oracle for a royal diviner who used it to reveal the origin of problems brought to his attention. The diviner would dispense to his patient a mixture of medicinal substances and chalk from the bowl. The female figure was typically identified as the wife of the diviner's possessing spirit, thus expressing the belief that women were the most powerful spirit containers in both life and art. In fact, the diviner's actual wife often acted as an intermediary in the consultation. The sculpture also served to protect and heal the village as a whole. Luba bowls bridge the visible and invisible realms enabling insight for the diviner.
December 11, 2025 at 9:01 AM
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Male Figure https://clevelandart.org/art/2010.431
This figure was the Delennes' first African art acquisition. They purchased the work in Paris in 1958—the year they were married—from the then leading French dealer Henri Kamer. The couple's interest in African art, which also inspired this particular acquisition, was triggered by their visit to the Congolese pavilion at the Brussels world's fair that same year. This experience made a lasting impression and triggered a lifelong appreciation for the art of what was then still the Belgian Congo. Although Odette later admitted that she knew that this figure was not the best example of Teke art, she and her husband held on to it because it served as a personal souvenir of their meeting each other.
December 10, 2025 at 4:59 PM
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Mother-and-Child Figure https://clevelandart.org/art/2003.35
This mother-and-child figure was probably part of a cult concerned with the treatment of infertility. Both her jewelry and her seated pose indicate that the woman occupied a high rank in her community. Her miter-shaped hairstyle, chiseled teeth, and raised body scars--considered to be marks of beauty and perfection--signal that the woman incarnates the founding ancestor of a kinship group.
December 10, 2025 at 2:21 PM
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Figurine https://clevelandart.org/art/2010.439
The Delenne’s stumbled upon this group of seven anthropomorphic figurines (2010.437-443) in an antiques shop in Nice during a holiday in the south of France in 1961. The carvings carry paperboard labels with inscriptions in French that indicate their ethnic and geographic provenance as well as some other details. Stemming from the Kongo region in West Central Africa, these seven sculptures feature a variety of gestures and poses; the use of mirror or glass for the eyes; and a red-white-black color scheme. They belong to the broad category of <em>minkisi</em> (sing. <em>nkisi</em>), containers for medicines in which an ancestral spirit was believed to reside. Two of the group are <em>minkisi</em> of the <em>nduda</em> type, characterized by the attached "guns" loaded with gunpowder and used to shoot witches.
December 10, 2025 at 10:38 AM
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Mortar https://clevelandart.org/art/1978.28
Tobacco, introduced into Africa in the 16th century, became the prerogative of leaders. As patrons of the arts, Chokwe chiefs commissioned elaborate pipes and mortars as part of their court regalia for display during public gatherings.
December 9, 2025 at 5:07 PM
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Figure Pair https://clevelandart.org/art/1971.297
Baule figures carved as pairs usually represent untamed spirits of the wilderness called <em>asye usu.</em> These spirits may intervene in the lives of individuals by taking possession of them. If this possession does not result in madness, it can lead to the human host’s becoming a diviner who can enter into a trance to reveal the causes of ailments and other misfortunes. People who feel their lives are being interrupted by the asye usu commission carvings representing idealized male and female forms whose grace and beauty in both anatomy and adornment will seduce the spirits and compel them to use the sculptures as their temporary homes.
December 9, 2025 at 3:17 PM
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Gold Weight : Antelope https://clevelandart.org/art/1935.306
The wealth and power of the Asante kingdom was derived primarily from its massive gold resources. Since at least 1600, small weights in brass and bronze were used to weight gold dust and nuggets. The royal court had the most elaborate store of weights, while commoners often had about a dozen. Their imagery falls into two broad cateogries: geometric and representational. The latter often refers to proverbs, which used judiciously, marked a wise person. The weight in the form of an antelope with enormous horns may refer to the proverb "had I known" -- a visual pun between the length of the horns and the idea of hindsight as perfect vision.
December 9, 2025 at 11:49 AM
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Male Figure https://clevelandart.org/art/2010.433
Its size, facial features, feather headdress (as worn by a local <em>nganga</em> or ritual specialist), and hangings of cloth seem to indicate that this <em>nkisi</em> figure in Vili style belongs to a type called <em>nduda</em>. While the hangings incorporate the typical shells, trade beads, knotted cloth strips, and small horns filled with medicine, they do not include the central symbol of the classic nduda: "night guns," or small grass tubes extending from clay or resin and loaded with gunpowder that was discharged against witches. Unless its night guns were lost during the course of its life history, this nkisi may instead be an example of a more general type called<em> mpanzu</em>, whose functions included protection and self-defense.
December 8, 2025 at 6:20 PM
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Jewelry https://clevelandart.org/art/1935.308
Shared by different Akan and Akan-related peoples, including the Asante and Baule, gold ornaments indicate status and wealth and are worn at public festivals by titleholders, chiefs, and kings. Most pectoral disks are suspended over the chest by a white, pineapple-fiber cord. They are owned by the okra, a young official who purifies the chief’s soul--hence, the name akrafokonmu, meaning "soul-washer’s badges" or "soul disks."
December 8, 2025 at 1:52 PM
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Female Figure https://clevelandart.org/art/1996.266
Female Figure
December 8, 2025 at 10:23 AM
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Club ("Knobkerrie") https://clevelandart.org/art/2010.232
Relatively short sticks were traditionally used for hunting and fighting and are customarily called knobkerries. The name refers to the characteristic spherical knob of wood or head atop a cylindrical shaft. The knobs could be decorated with copper or brass studs or carved in various shapes and forms. This heavily patinated non-figurative club, with its sliced-off spherical knob, exemplifies a classic Zulu style.
December 7, 2025 at 7:51 PM
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Carved Tooth https://clevelandart.org/art/1969.137
This is a fine example of art produced for sale to European visitors in the Lower Congo River area. A long history of cultural and artistic interactions between Africans and Europeans began in 1482, when the Portuguese first established diplomatic ties with the rulers of the Kongo kingdoms. Note the image of a foreign merchant pouring whiskey from a keg.
December 7, 2025 at 10:25 AM
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Oliphant (Side-Blown Trumpet) https://clevelandart.org/art/2010.448
The elephant tusk used to make this trumpet was either shaved down or originated from a younger animal. The instrument is held horizontally when blown, as its mouthpiece is located in the tusk's inner curve. Trumpets were used as musical instruments on various occasions, and ivory examples seem to have been reserved for more solemn circumstances, such as funerals. However, short trumpets decorated with human figuration may have been made for export to Europe. Whether this assertion applies to the present object cannot be confirmed, though its honey-colored patina testifies to long-term handling. The seated male wearing a shell necklace and a European cloak and hat depicts a Yombe ruler, signifying the acceptance of outsider influence.
December 6, 2025 at 7:15 PM
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Male Figure https://clevelandart.org/art/1969.10
This figure was used in an ancestral cult dedicated to the founders of small political groupings. Such figures were usually kept in the same shrine with a number of stylistically related male and female carvings that represented ancestors. At times of crisis, the custodian of the shrine spent the night in close proximity to the images, bringing offerings to the ancestors in exchange for their support.
December 6, 2025 at 2:12 PM
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Necklace https://clevelandart.org/art/2010.231
When wild game was still plentiful in the region, real animal claws would have been used to punctuate beaded prestige necklaces. Lion-claw necklaces were the exclusive property of royalty while the bone imitations were owned and worn by high-ranking individuals of lesser status. Large red glass beads were also reserved for the Nguni elite in the period before the destruction of the Zulu kingdom in 1879.
December 6, 2025 at 11:06 AM
cmaafrican.bsky.social
Club ("Knobkerrie") https://clevelandart.org/art/2010.203
Relatively short sticks were traditionally used for hunting and fighting and are customarily called knobkerries. The name refers to the characteristic spherical knob of wood or head atop a cylindrical shaft. The knobs were decorated with copper or brass studs or carved in various shapes and forms. Even though their basic shapes were derived from real weapons, many of these precious objects were rarely if ever used as such. Highly personal, they instead functioned as ceremonial display items or regalia, symbolizing the masculinity and prowess of their owner.
December 5, 2025 at 5:43 PM
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Figure https://clevelandart.org/art/1976.29
The most varied group of soapstone figures and heads has been found in the homelands of the Kissi. Calling them pomda ("images of the dead"), the Kissi placed them in ancestral shrines, offering them the last seeds at sowing times and the first fruits of the harvest. However, the sculptures are believed to have been made centuries ago by the ancestors of the Kissi, the so-called Sapi people.
December 5, 2025 at 12:37 PM
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Figure Pair https://clevelandart.org/art/1971.297.1
Baule figures carved as pairs usually represent untamed spirits of the wilderness called <em>asye usu.</em> These spirits may intervene in the lives of individuals by taking possession of them. If this possession does not result in madness, it can lead to the human host’s becoming a diviner who can enter into a trance to reveal the causes of ailments and other misfortunes. People who feel their lives are being interrupted by the asye usu commission carvings representing idealized male and female forms whose grace and beauty in both anatomy and adornment will seduce the spirits and compel them to use the sculptures as their temporary homes.
December 5, 2025 at 8:21 AM
cmaafrican.bsky.social
Man's Tunic/Robe https://clevelandart.org/art/2013.6
Man's Tunic/Robe
December 4, 2025 at 4:21 PM
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Pair of Figures https://clevelandart.org/art/2010.459
Although this pair has been attributed to the Ngbandi, many of the style characteristics identified as typical of that culture are in fact shared with its neighbors the Ngbaka- Minagende, among others. Carving of paired figures is quite well documented among the Ngbaka-Minagende, where such sculptures are said to represent the mythical ancestor Seto and his sister-wife, Nabo. But field-based research cannot confirm the existence of figurative couples among the Ngbandi. Were all such Ngbandi-style couples created by Ngbandi artists for a neighboring Ngbaka-Minagende community or another Ubangi group? Or do they instead refer to a more localized tradition that was never documented by foreign observers?
December 4, 2025 at 2:12 PM