Kongo, Yombe
Democratic Republic of the Congo
19th century
Carved wood
Height 6 inches (15.2 cm)
Margaret Plass, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Lee and Dona Bronson, Los Angeles, California; Michael Sorafine, Los Angeles, California
Published in Joseph Cornet, A Survey of Zairian Art: The Bronson Collection, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, 1978
The figure is carved seated, the legs folded in close and the arms drawn to the body with the hands brought forward above them. A cap worked in crosshatched lattice covers the crown and sits above arched brows, wide set eyes, a broad nose, and a parted mouth. A ridged collar circles the throat, and the surface carries a warm honey brown tone.
The carving is worked at a scale that keeps every element legible, from the lattice of the cap to the ridge of the collar and the shaping of the hands. Lower Congo carving of this period is known for the attention it gives the head, and the proportions here follow that, with the head set large against the folded body. The figure is mounted on a stepped wood base.
Margaret Plass was an American collector and writer on African art who divided her time between Philadelphia and London. After the death of her husband Webster Plass in 1952 she gave the greater part of their collection to the British Museum, where she worked closely with the curator William Fagg, and she made further gifts to the Penn Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bryn Mawr College, and La Salle University. Her book African Miniatures: The Goldweights of the Ashanti was published in 1967. Lee and Dona Bronson assembled a collection of Congolese sculpture in Los Angeles that Joseph Cornet published as A Survey of Zairian Art: The Bronson Collection, shown at the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Museum of African Art in Washington, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History between 1978 and 1979.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
Kongo, Yombe
Democratic Republic of the Congo
19th century
Carved wood
Height 6 inches (15.2 cm)
Margaret Plass, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Lee and Dona Bronson, Los Angeles, California; Michael Sorafine, Los Angeles, California
Published in Joseph Cornet, A Survey of Zairian Art: The Bronson Collection, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, 1978
The figure is carved seated, the legs folded in close and the arms drawn to the body with the hands brought forward above them. A cap worked in crosshatched lattice covers the crown and sits above arched brows, wide set eyes, a broad nose, and a parted mouth. A ridged collar circles the throat, and the surface carries a warm honey brown tone.
The carving is worked at a scale that keeps every element legible, from the lattice of the cap to the ridge of the collar and the shaping of the hands. Lower Congo carving of this period is known for the attention it gives the head, and the proportions here follow that, with the head set large against the folded body. The figure is mounted on a stepped wood base.
Margaret Plass was an American collector and writer on African art who divided her time between Philadelphia and London. After the death of her husband Webster Plass in 1952 she gave the greater part of their collection to the British Museum, where she worked closely with the curator William Fagg, and she made further gifts to the Penn Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bryn Mawr College, and La Salle University. Her book African Miniatures: The Goldweights of the Ashanti was published in 1967. Lee and Dona Bronson assembled a collection of Congolese sculpture in Los Angeles that Joseph Cornet published as A Survey of Zairian Art: The Bronson Collection, shown at the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Museum of African Art in Washington, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History between 1978 and 1979.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
