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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Flywhisk https://clevelandart.org/art/2010.435
Flywhisks had the same purpose as scepters in Central Africa: rather than whisk away flies, they denoted status, rank, and function. Although commonly associated with chiefs and titleholders, they were likely also owned by ritual specialists, diviners, and healers. Little is known about their actual occurrence in Kongoland, but based on evidence from other regions, they may also have been used to purify ritually polluted spaces; to bless people, places, or things by sprinkling them with liquids; or to settle disputes in court when brandished by a judge. Rare are flywhisks depicting maternities, like this finely carved miniature of a woman kneeling-a sign of obedience and respect-who holds the child clinging to her body.
February 13, 2026 at 5:28 PM
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Corpus (Crucified Christ) https://clevelandart.org/art/2010.445
The Kingdom of Kongo was founded in the 1300s and rapidly consolidated into a centralized state. Shortly after the arrival of the Portuguese explorer Diogo Cam in 1483, and the Catholic missionaries traveling with him, the Kongo king was baptized as João I, and Christianity became the state religion. Commercial and diplomatic relationships may have been solidified between the Kongo kingdom and the Portuguese, but civil war, the Atlantic slave trade, and Christian proselytism would cause serious disruption and turmoil in Kongo society during the ensuing centuries. Testifying to the interaction between Central African religion and Catholicism, Kongo crucifixes were created as new spiritual tools to help explain and alleviate the turbulent situation.
February 13, 2026 at 12:57 PM
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Janus Figure https://clevelandart.org/art/2010.458
This Janus figure features opposing faces and symbolizes change and transformation. A cavity in the top of the head served to hold all sorts of ingredients with magical and medicinal qualities. Its brilliant patina reveals its use in repeated ritual applications, as the figure played a pivotal role in cults dedicated to the ancestors; in exchange for prayers, libations, and offerings, the ancestors were asked to safeguard the well-being and fertility of the population.The figure was called upon to remedy illness, pain, and other kinds of misfortune, and when displayed in a funerary house alongside the skulls of deceased chiefs and a number of large, standing ancestor figures, the sculpture was also used to solve female infertility and to protect and enhance the chief 's authority.
February 13, 2026 at 9:33 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.
February 12, 2026 at 4:13 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.
February 12, 2026 at 3:46 PM
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Hair Ornament https://clevelandart.org/art/1915.501
Hair Ornament
February 12, 2026 at 11:02 AM
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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.
February 11, 2026 at 5:47 PM
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Neck Ornament https://clevelandart.org/art/2010.207
Typically such an ornament was worn by a woman in conjunction with other beadwork in complementary color schemes. In addition to making her own beadwork, however, a woman would also produce her husband’s beadwork and, before marriage, the beadwork worn by the young man courting her. Before the introduction of glass beads by European traders, southern African communities acquired beads of Indian manufacture from Arab traders.
February 11, 2026 at 3:45 PM
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Carved Tusk https://clevelandart.org/art/1968.284
Consisting of a clay platform built against a wall, the altars in the palace of the oba, the divine Benin king, are furnished with different ceremonial objects, including elephant tusks that the new oba commissions from the ivory carvers' guild within three years of his installation. Carved in parallel horizontal rows, the motifs covering the surface of the tusks recall historical and mythological traditions.
February 11, 2026 at 11:34 AM
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Figure Pair https://clevelandart.org/art/1971.297.2
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.
February 10, 2026 at 4:44 PM
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Memorial Figure (Ere ibeji) https://clevelandart.org/art/2016.9
Such a figure is carved when a twin dies in infancy and serves as a memorial to the surviving sibling. These twin figures are always carved to look like adult individuals with idealized physical features. Various body adornments suggest the care parents devote to their children, while the erosion of facial features indicates the symbolic washing and feeding of the figure as a means to connect the soul of the deceased to that of the living twin.
February 10, 2026 at 12:27 PM
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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.
February 10, 2026 at 9:44 AM
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Whistle https://clevelandart.org/art/1915.444
Carved out of ivory or wood in a variety of shapes, Chokwe whistles often bear miniature, stylized renderings of masks. Cikunza, the "patron saint" of the boys' initiation into manhood, is depicted with a pointed extension imitating the horn of a road antelope, symbolizing the fertility spirit. Typically such whistles were used by men during the hunt to communicate with their co-hunters and to call their dogs. They were either worn attached to a string as a necklace or tied to a spear.
February 9, 2026 at 4:51 PM
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Pair of Figure Staffs (Edan Ogboni) https://clevelandart.org/art/1996.403
The chain connecting these two figures allows them to be worn in public by a member of the Ogboni or Oshugbo association as authority emblems. The male on the right gives the association’s typical salute by clasping his left fist on the right one, while the female on the left holds her breasts as a sign of welcome and generosity. The use of copper alloy and iron expresses Ogboni/Oshugbo’s concerns with longevity and durability.
February 9, 2026 at 3:30 PM
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Knife https://clevelandart.org/art/1916.1020
Knife
February 9, 2026 at 8:59 AM
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Patten-type Shoe https://clevelandart.org/art/1929.566.1
Patten-type Shoe
February 8, 2026 at 7:55 PM
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Head https://clevelandart.org/art/1938.6
Metal arts flourished in the Benin kingdom from the 15th to the 19th century, until the British military sacked the Benin capital in 1897. This brass head depicts the divine Benin ruler cloaked in a headdress and collar of red coral beads. Such heads were ordered by a new king (oba) as centerpieces for the ancestral altar--an earthen platform--in honor of his deceased predecessor.
February 8, 2026 at 2:20 PM
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Male Figure https://clevelandart.org/art/2010.428
This object is one of only two seated male Beembe figures of such a size preserved in the West; the other is in the Ethnographic Museum of the University of Zurich, Switzerland. They could have represented revered ancestors and functioned in a cult in their honor, but we lack any primary information to support such hypotheses. A field photograph taken in 1926 by a Swedish missionary shows a third sculpture of the same size caringly held by a Beembe man standing in front of what may be an ancestral shrine. Because it lacks the typical abdominal scarifications, it is not impossible that the Delenne figure was originally dressed with fabrics and other accoutrements covering its torso and legs, which would also account for its scuffed and unfinished state.<br><br>This sculpture played a role in ancestral worship among the Beembe people. Ancestors are held in high regard among the Beembe, and this figure is thought to represent an idealized form of a deceased individual within the ethnic group.
February 8, 2026 at 8:18 AM
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Helmet Mask https://clevelandart.org/art/1967.151
Helmet Mask
February 7, 2026 at 5:48 PM
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Serpent Headdress https://clevelandart.org/art/1960.37
Traditionally, Baga society was ruled by village councils of elders who derived their power from their direct contact with spirit entities through lifelong initiation rituals and the accumulation of secret knowledge. Two different religious orders controlled initiations, providing the context for much Baga art. One was identified as female, the other as male, though only men belonged to both groups. Initiations in each order followed three stages, culminating in the revelation of the highest spirit being. This type of Baga headdress embodied the serpent spirit Ninkinanka, honored for giving rain, bestowing riches, and bringing forth children. The serpent figure would be placed on top of a conical framework of palm branches carried on a male dancer’s head. It appeared at the end of the first level of the initiation for boys and girls or just before the circumcision at the beginning of the boys’ initiation.
February 7, 2026 at 12:57 PM
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Flywhisk https://clevelandart.org/art/1975.8
Flywhisk
February 7, 2026 at 8:43 AM
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Snuff Spoon https://clevelandart.org/art/2010.234
Often, snuff spoons made from the rib of an ox or cow were subtly carved to suggest a female body. Decorated with incised designs blackened with cattle fat and ash, many are true hybrid objects, combining a spoon with a long-tined comb or hairpin. Such spoons were typically worn as ornaments in the hair or even the beard, thus signaling the social standing of their wearer. [Constantine Petridis Cleveland Museum of Art, (4/16/11-2/26/12); "The Art of Daily Life: Portable Objects from Southeast Africa"]
February 6, 2026 at 6:45 PM
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Knife https://clevelandart.org/art/1916.1018
Knife
February 6, 2026 at 1:12 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.
February 6, 2026 at 10:16 AM
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Figurine https://clevelandart.org/art/2010.442
The Delennes stumbled upon this group of seven anthropomorphic figurines (2010.437–43) in an antique 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> (singular <em>nkisi</em>), containers for medicines in which an ancestral spirit was believed to reside. Two of the group are minkisi of the <em>nduda</em> type, characterized by the attached "guns" loaded with gunpowder and used to shoot witches.
February 5, 2026 at 5:40 PM