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AIC: African Art (Bot)

AIC: African Art (Bot)

@aicafricanart.bsky.social

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Sharing artworks from the Art Institute of African Art department. Automated thanks to @andreitr.bsky.social and @botfrens.bsky.social

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AIC: African Art (Bot) @aicafricanart.bsky.social · 8m

Scarboid Amulet with the Eye of the God Horus (Wedjat) https://www.artic.edu/artworks/141289/

The Art Institute of Chicago

AIC: African Art (Bot) @aicafricanart.bsky.social · 3h

Miniature Male Figure https://www.artic.edu/artworks/185818/

This figure encapsulates the hallmarks of Dogon abstraction in precise miniature. He stands with his knees flexed and his elongated forearms extended to cover his face. The pose may be a reference to mourning or to rituals for ancestors, as Dogon figures with this gesture are often placed on ancestral altars.

Gift of Richard Faletti, the Faletti Family Collection

AIC: African Art (Bot) @aicafricanart.bsky.social · 4h

Caryatid Stool https://www.artic.edu/artworks/120148/

The image of a figure supporting a stool was probably introduced into Songye art in the 19th century by the neighboring Luba. This is one of a small group of stylistically similar stools featuring a muscular figure with splayed feet, flexed legs, and abstracted facial features, including a jutting chin. They likely served as symbols of rank and authority, although some could have been made for a European clientele.

Major Acquisitions Centennial Endowment

AIC: African Art (Bot) @aicafricanart.bsky.social · 7h

Hippopotamus https://www.artic.edu/artworks/49151/

Restricted gift of Sylvia Shaw Judson, Theodora Shaw King, and David Shaw King in memory of Howard Van Doren Shaw

AIC: African Art (Bot) @aicafricanart.bsky.social · 22h

Qur'an Box Pendant https://www.artic.edu/artworks/159841/

The Ida Ou Nadif and other Imazighen peoples have developed highly distinctive jewelry styles. These bracelets, earrings, and headband are embellished with patterns in a black metal alloy mixture called niello. The box was designed to hold a copy of the Qu’ran and hang from a chain around a devotee’s neck. Across northern Africa exquisite silver jewelry defines a woman’s wealth and comprises an important part of the wedding gift that a man gives to his fiancée.

Edward E. Ayer Endowment in memory of Charles L. Hutchinson

AIC: African Art (Bot) @aicafricanart.bsky.social · 1d

Plaque Depicting a Quail Chick https://www.artic.edu/artworks/121724/

Museum Purchase Fund

AIC: African Art (Bot) @aicafricanart.bsky.social · 1d

Jar (Wékéru) https://www.artic.edu/artworks/185703/

Among the most elaborately adorned Baatombu (singular, Baatonu) vessels are large egg-shaped jars with heavily embellished surfaces that combine delicate incising with bold modeling in low or high relief. Some of these, as well as similarly shaped shea-butter-fueled lamps, are decorated with inventive sculptural forms including animals and fully realized figures.This jar may have been commissioned as a “butter jar” for a newly married woman. Central to its imagery is a male and female couple—tendered in an elongated style—that stands rooted in the swirling sea of imagery enveloping the pot from top to bottom. The heads of a man, wearing a chief’s hat, and woman, wearing a traditional headwrap, float amid the images of a large chameleon, a crocodile, and hemispherical beads, some linked together, possibly referring to the sexually provocative beads that Baatombu women wear around their waists. [See also 2002.625, 2005.240, and 2005.272].

Gift of Keith Achepohl

AIC: African Art (Bot) @aicafricanart.bsky.social · 1d

Woman's Apron https://www.artic.edu/artworks/155977/

Short beaded aprons are important to the history of women's dress in many parts of Africa. Worn well into the mid-20th century, such aprons are rarely seen today outside of ceremonial contexts. Most aprons were created by highly specialized craftswomen. Different approaches to pattern may represent regional styles, personal taste, or differences in age and marital status. The stylistic variety and compositional virtuosity of many beaded skirts indicate the creative freedom of their designers and creators. This apron features monochromatic bars and blocks that, in certain places in the design, bleed into one another. The cowrie shells lining the bottom of the apron are typical and may be a reference to the social status of the wearer. They also make a pleasant sound when the apron is worn.—Permanent Collection Object Description

O. Renard Goltra Endowment

AIC: African Art (Bot) @aicafricanart.bsky.social · 1d

Storage Container https://www.artic.edu/artworks/185659/

Massive, wide-mouthed storage containers—some up to five feet in diameter—are made across a wide region of Mali, Burkina Faso, and northern Ghana. Too big to move easily, these huge pots must be fired individually. Women use the vessels for a variety of household purposes, principally the germinating of millet or guinea corn to make beer. Such containers can also be used to store beer, water, or personal possessions. The enigmatic imagery on this thick-rimmed example includes three staffs (probably denoting an old form of metal currency), an arrow-shaped motif (perhaps symbolizing women), and a water buffalo head or mask

Gift of Keith Achepohl

AIC: African Art (Bot) @aicafricanart.bsky.social · 1d

Jar https://www.artic.edu/artworks/185702/

Yoruba potters in the Ekiti region typically build a jar’s walls and rims from a hollowed-out lump of clay. After the completed jar has hardened, the potter inverts it and scrapes the outside of the base until it is evenly thin and smooth. The form of this elaborately decorated vessel echoes a type of domestic storage container with knobs on opposing sides that serve as handles.

Gift of Keith Achepohl

AIC: African Art (Bot) @aicafricanart.bsky.social · 2d

Ointment Vessel with Lid https://www.artic.edu/artworks/120336/

Gift of Henry H. Getty, Charles L. Hutchinson, Robert H. Fleming, and Norman W. Harris

AIC: African Art (Bot) @aicafricanart.bsky.social · 2d

Goldweight with a Geometric Design https://www.artic.edu/artworks/54039/

Brass gold weights were used to measure gold dust, the local currency in the Akan-speaking regions of southern Ghana and the Ivory Coast before the 20th century. This small, square weight has a relatively tall base and consists of a raised abstract rectangle with four linear pieces removed. It is a striking and dynamic composition in its simplicity and clean geometry. While interpretations of such abstract patterns are speculative, some do have parallels in architecture and textile design. Many probably relate to West African cultural items such as Adinkra symbols or are abstract interpretations of plants and animals.
–Permanent Collection Object Description

Gift of the Britt Family Collection

AIC: African Art (Bot) @aicafricanart.bsky.social · 2d

Scarab: The God Ptah with Name of Usermaatra Setepenra (Ramesses II) https://www.artic.edu/artworks/134108/

Gift of Henry H. Getty and Charles L. Hutchinson

AIC: African Art (Bot) @aicafricanart.bsky.social · 2d

Goldweight Depicting Entwined Catfish https://www.artic.edu/artworks/96724/

Gift of Raymond Wielgus

AIC: African Art (Bot) @aicafricanart.bsky.social · 2d

Pair of Figures https://www.artic.edu/artworks/184633/

Gourd figures like this pair are found throughout eastern and southern Africa. References to gourd “dolls” are found in travelers’ accounts from the early 19th century, and it is probable that the tradition existed long before. These figures from southern Tanzania were most likely employed as protective objects during girls’ initiation ceremonies, as spirit figures in ritual healing, or both. The colors of the beads—black (or dark blue), white, and red—are widely associated with classes of spirits among the peoples of Tanzania. The beads on the top of the figures’ heads are embedded in resin, which is often used on objects made for ritual specialists. Some of the beads are strung on hair—possibly human—which can be employed variously to enhance the realism of the figures or to increase their ritual power by way of a supernaturally charged substance. The fabric used to make the arms contains machine-made serging, which suggests that the fabric was added in the 1960s or later and perhaps dating the creation of the entire figures to that period. This is certainly a possibility as such figures continue to be made and used in the region today.—Permanent Collection Object Description

Gift of Rita J. Gaples

AIC: African Art (Bot) @aicafricanart.bsky.social · 3d

Pectoral Disk (Akrafokonmu or Awisiado) https://www.artic.edu/artworks/152012/

Gold ornaments indicate status and wealth among the Asante and other Akan-speaking peoples in coastal and central Ghana. They are worn ostentatiously at public festivals by titleholders, chiefs, and kings. The production of such ornaments declined in 1896, when British colonialists exiled the Asante king Prempeh I, but revived when he returned to Ghana in 1924. The size and artistry of this pectoral disk suggest that it was made after Prempeh I’s restoration to the throne.

Irving Dobkin and David Soltker estates; Jane Brill Memorial Fund; Mr. and Mrs. David B. Ross Endowment

AIC: African Art (Bot) @aicafricanart.bsky.social · 3d

Amulet of the Goddess Tawaret (Toeris) https://www.artic.edu/artworks/135858/

Gift of Charles L. Hutchinson, Henry H. Getty, and Norman W. Harris

AIC: African Art (Bot) @aicafricanart.bsky.social · 3d

Vessel https://www.artic.edu/artworks/185699/

This type of spherical pot with a short neck and linear ornamentation functioned as a symbol of rank for titled men in the hierarchical Igbo society. During ceremonies where titles were conferred, it would be used to serve palm wine to titleholders and other honored guests. This vessel’s surface decoration is unusually dynamic due to the textural contrasts between vertical and horizontal lines, and between smoothly burnished and bumpy incised areas.

Gift of Keith Achepohl

AIC: African Art (Bot) @aicafricanart.bsky.social · 3d

Figure Posts https://www.artic.edu/artworks/187141/

Figurative posts in eastern Africa and on the island of Madagascar most commonly serve as grave sculptures, but they have also been observed on the sites of initiation and spirit possession rituals and of association meetings. This pair represents a male ancestor on the left and a female one on the right. It is unclear whether the parallel rings carved around their necks mimic jewelry or are merely decorative.

Restricted gift of Terry E. and Cynthia Perucca

AIC: African Art (Bot) @aicafricanart.bsky.social · 3d

Porcupine-Shaped Stamp for Adinkra Textile https://www.artic.edu/artworks/193454/

Gift of Doran H. Ross

AIC: African Art (Bot) @aicafricanart.bsky.social · 4d

Female Figure with Bowl https://www.artic.edu/artworks/109470/

This figure was made for a shrine dedicated to one of the Yoruba orisa (deities)—possibly Shango, who is associated with the power of thunderstorms, warriors, and kings. The woman’s expression of concentration, her crisp features and incised details, and the energetic pose of the child are characteristic of the acclaimed sculptor Abogunde of Ede. The figure is at once an offering, a container for offerings, and the representation of a devotee presenting an offering.

Gift of the Alsdorf Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. James W. Alsdorf, and Mr. and Mrs. Joseph P. Antonow; Samuel P. Avery Fund; gift of Herbert Baker and Gwendolyn Miller, the Britt Family Collection, and Gaston T. de Havenon; Ada Turnbull Hertle Fund; gift of Mr. and Mrs. Edwin E. Hokin, Robert Stolper, and Mr. and Mrs. Edward H. Weiss; through prior gift of Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Wielgus

AIC: African Art (Bot) @aicafricanart.bsky.social · 4d

Stamp for Adinkra Textile https://www.artic.edu/artworks/193465/

Gift of Doran H. Ross

AIC: African Art (Bot) @aicafricanart.bsky.social · 4d

Chest Ornament (Bibika) https://www.artic.edu/artworks/155975/

Distinctive, cylindrically shaped glass beads were imported to Africa in the early 20th century, where they captured the imagination of the Yaka and related peoples, who called them n-saanga. They were used to adorn chiefly headdresses and to make women’s anklets, ear pendants, necklaces, and large chest ornaments. Tied into the fringe of this yellow chest ornament are brass coins dating from the 1930s. [See also 2000.449].

Arnold Crane Endowment

AIC: African Art (Bot) @aicafricanart.bsky.social · 4d

Container for Ritual Healing (Itinate or Kwandalowa) https://www.artic.edu/artworks/185713/

The closely related Cham and Mwona and their eastern neighbors the Longuda use pottery in rituals intended to protect against and treat spirit-inflicted maladies, in party by transferring the illness to a pot in which it can be contained. Among the Cha and Mwona these ritual containers are called itinate and are made by men with unique skills and knowledge. Among the Longuda, however, they are called kwandalha and the specialists who make them are women.With their swollen bulges, jagged scales, scabby patches, and sharp points, these containers give graphic form to the pain and discomfort of disease. The highly stylized human form of this receptacle is particularly evocative: its tripartite trunk, suggesting torso and arms, is elongated and scabby, and its animated head has an almost anguished expression, with wide upturned eyes and an open mouth. [See also 2005.269, 2005.279, and 2005.280]

Gift of Keith Achepohl

AIC: African Art (Bot) @aicafricanart.bsky.social · 4d

Hair Comb https://www.artic.edu/artworks/126282/

Worcester Children's Fund