The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 26, 2024

Mother-and-Child Figure

Mother-and-Child Figure

late 1800s–early 1900s
Location: not on view

Description

Wearing an elaborate lobed headdress and a beaded waistbelt, and having filed teeth and red-powdered skin, this maternity figure seems to have once carried an ax and a cup, wooden imitations of the two most important chiefly attributes. Perhaps together with a male counterpart, it was secretly kept inside the ritual house, serving as a guardian of the chief’s treasure. Its style places it in the westernmost corner of Pendeland, between the Lutshima and Kwilu rivers.
  • (Guillaume de Hondat, Brussels)
  • Petridis, Constantijn. South of the Sahara: selected works of African art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2003. Reproduced: cat. 37, p. 104 - 105
    Cole, Herbert M. Maternity: Mothers and Children in the Arts of Africa.
    Brussels : Mercatorfonds, 2017 Reproduced and mentioned: pp. 150-151, fig. 126
    Petridis, Constantine. "A World of Great Art for Everyone." In Representing Africa in American Art Museums: A Century of Collecting and Display. Kathleen Bickford Berzock and Christa Clarke, 104-121. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2011. Mentioned: p. 111.
  • Object in Focus: Mother and Child Figure, 19th-early 20th century; Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mbala people (wood, beads; 1931.426). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 17-November 24, 2002).
    Cleveland, Ohio: The Cleveland Museum of Art; September 17- November 24, 2002. " Object in Focus: Mother and Child Figure, 19th-early 20th century; 1931.426."
    African Art. Karamu House, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 1-May 30, 1960).
    Cleveland, Ohio: Karamu House, March 1 - May 30, 1960: "African Art."
  • {{cite web|title=Mother-and-Child Figure|url=false|author=|year=late 1800s–early 1900s|access-date=26 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1931.426