“Kongo: Power and Majesty” at the Met.

I already mentioned the show but this important exhibition really is a unique, once in a lifetime, opportunity to view many of the earliest surviving African textiles, drawn together from numerous  museum collections across Europe. A few years ago I went all the way to Ulm to see the cloth below (okay and a couple of others.) Don’t miss it !

Date: 16th–17th century, inventoried 1659

Geography: Democratic Republic of the Congo; Angola; Republic of the Congo Culture: Kongo peoples; Kongo Kingdom Medium: Raffia Dimensions: L. 75 9/16 in. (192 cm), H. 59 7/16 in (151 cm) [excluding 5 1/2 in (14 cm) perimeter fringe ] Classification: Textiles-Woven Credit Line: Kunst- und Wunderkammer des Christoph Weickmann, Ulmer Museum, Ulm, Germany

Note that this astonishingly fine cloth above is almost two metres square – looking at the photos it is too easy to visualize it as the small Kuba squares that we are so familiar with.

 

Luxury Cloth: Cushion Cover

Date: 17th–18th century, inventoried 1737. Geography: Democratic Republic of the Congo; Angola; Republic of the Congo Culture: Kongo peoples; Kongo Kingdom. Medium: Raffia Dimensions: 21 1/4 in. (54 cm) × 21 1/4 in. (54 cm)Classification: Textiles-Woven Credit Line: Nationalmuseet, Copenhagen

Prestige Cap (Mpu)

Date: 16th–17th century, inventoried 1674 Geography: Democratic Republic of the Congo; Angola; Republic of the Congo Culture: Kongo peoples; Kongo Kingdom Medium: Raffia or pineapple fiber Dimensions: H. 7 1/8 (18 cm), Diam. 5 7/8 in. (15 cm) Classification: Textiles-Non-Woven Credit Line: Nationalmuseet, Copenhagen

 

Prestige Cap (Mpu)

Date: 17th–18th century, inventoried 1876  Geography: Democratic Republic of the Congo; Republic of the Congo; Angola Culture: Kongo peoples Medium: Raffia or pineapple fiber Dimensions: H. 8 7/8 in. (22.5 cm), Diam. 6 1/4 in. (15.9 cm) Classification: Textiles-Non-Woven Credit Line: MIBACT-–Polo Museale del Lazio, Museo Preistorico Etnografico Luigi Pigorini, Rome

 

Garment (Nkutu)

Date: 19th century, inventoried 1853 Geography: Democratic Republic of the Congo; Angola; Republic of the Congo Culture: Kongo peoples Medium: Raffia. Dimensions: 31 1/8 × 49 1/4 in. (79 × 125 cm) Classification: Textiles-Costumes Credit Line: British Museum, London

 

 

Cameroon Feather Hats in context.

With newly made Cameroon feather hats for sale by the hundred on Ebay and, I noticed this morning, a page on Pinterest devoted to “Juju Hat Decor” it seems like a good time to look at a few old images showing the real thing in the original context of court regalia in the Cameroon grassfields kingdoms of the early C20th. All photos vintage postcards circa 1900-10, author’s collection.

African hats in Paris auction next week

A fine collection of African hats will be auctioned at Drouot in Paris next Tuesday (18 December) by auctioneers Neret-Minet, Tessier & Sarrou. The catalogue is on-line. Quite modest estimates for some unusual pieces.

Photo above shows Lot 95: West African hat of unknown origin.

Lot 61: Madagascar

Lot 64: Lesotho

Lot 65: South Africa – Ntwana

Lot 68: South Africa – Ntwana

Lot 67: South Africa – Zulu

Lot 75: Cameroon

Lot 79: Kenya – Pokot/Karamajong

Lot 84: Cameroun

Lot 85: Nigeria – Yoruba. Is this really a “priest’s hat” I wonder ?

Lot 88: Congo – Kuba

Lot 90: Congo – Mangbetu

Lot 92: Congo – Mbala

African Headwear: Beyond Fashion–new exhibition at Dallas Museum of Art

“August 14, 2011–January 1, 2012
Focus Gallery I

African Headwear: Beyond Fashion, an exhibition of approximately fifty objects from the Museum’s collection of African art, internationally acclaimed as one of the top five of its kind in the United States, explores the way in which headwear signifies status in traditional African societies. Often made of unusual materials, such as the skin from a pangolin (spiny anteater), wood and copper, various types of nutshells, lion mane, and human hair, African headwear can also include glass beads, plastic buttons, and ostrich feathers used in unfamiliar ways.

For example, a sacred crown worn by Yoruba kings in Nigeria is lavishly beaded and adorned with sculpted birds and modeled human faces. Tiered basketry hats worn by Ekonda chiefs from the Democratic Republic of the Congo feature hammered brass discs. Baule chiefs in the Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) wear velvet pillbox-style hats on which symbolic gold-leaf ornaments are attached.

Among the exhibition’s highlights, which also include significant works from local private collections, is a work from the Lega, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where a man wearing a hat adorned with elephant tails would be recognized as belonging to the highest level of the association.

Another hat is something a Himba bride from southern Africa would wear on her wedding day. Made of soft calfskin imbued with butter and red ocher and decorated with iron beads, its large earflaps prevent the bride from looking in any direction but forward—toward her new husband’s home.

African Headwear: Beyond Fashion is organized by the Dallas Museum of Art and curated by Roslyn A. Walker, Senior Curator of the Arts of Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific and The Margaret McDermott Curator of African Art at the Dallas Museum of Art.

Images:

Diviners headdress (nkaka), Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tabwa, mid-20th century, leather, fiber, beads, and feathers, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of The Cecil and Ida Green Foundation, 1999.62”