Le Monde Covers Parcours des Mondes 2015

This year's upcoming edition of Parcours des Mondes was the subject of a June article in Le Monde. Examining the growth and popularity of the event and the tribal art market at large, the piece featured Jacaranda amid a group of distinguished international tribal art dealers and led with a highlight of a gorgeous Tsonga headrest in our collection. 

"Quant aux prix glanés dans les différentes galeries, ils varient selon la rareté, la traçabilité, l’état de l’objet. Ainsi, Roger Bourahimou vend ses pièces « rares et atypiques d’Afrique centrale » entre 1 500 et 200 000 euros. Chez Dori et Daniel Rootenberg de la galerie Jacaranda, basée à New-York et spécialisée dans l'art d'Afrique du Sud, cet appui-tête tsonga est à 5 500 euros et ce rare knobkerrie (bâton) avec un conteneur de tabac à priser à 20 000 euros."

Read the article in French here.

Headrest  -  Tsonga, South Africa  -  Late 19th or early 20th century

New Acquisitions at Jacaranda Tribal

Jacaranda Tribal is currently presenting a new online exhibition of fine tribal works from Africa and New Zealand. Sublime figures, finely crafted weapons, and gorgeous utilitarian objects are just some of the items now available, the full range of which can be found below. For more details on these works and many more, visit www.jacarandatribal.com

Figure  -  Ntwane, South Africa  -  Late 19th century

Ladle  -  Herero, Namibia  -  Late 19th or early 20th century

Pair of seated colonial figures  -  Southeast Africa  -  Late 19th or early 20th century

Heddle pulley  -  Senufo, Côte d'Ivoire  -  Late 19th or early 20th century

Goldweight  -  Akan, Ghana  -  19th century

Female figure  -  Dogon, Mali  -  18th or 19th century

Whistle  -  Mossi, Burkina Faso  -  Late 19th century

Mask  -  Kono or Mano, Sierra Leone  -  Early 20th century

Hand axe, patiti  -  Maori, New Zealand  -  19th century

Friction oracle  -  Ndengese or Kuba, D.R. Congo  -  19th century

Dagger-like implement  -  Maori, New Zealand  -  19th century

Hand club, patu onewa  -  Maori, New Zealand  -  18th or first half of 19th century

Headrest  -  Tsonga Shangaan, Zimbabwe  -  Late 19th century

Figural staff  -  Attie, Côte d'Ivoire  -  Late 19th or early 20th century

Images ©James Worrell / Jacaranda Tribal 2014

www.jacarandatribal.com

New Acquisitions at Jacaranda Tribal

Our gorgeous assemblage of new acquisitions for February 2012 includes a fine Akan terracotta head; a delicately carved Grebo mask; a pair of beautiful Yoruba ibeji twin figures; a powerful Senufo figurine, and many more.  Visit our online gallery at Jacaranda Tribal for more information on all of the objects below.

Terracotta head - Akan, Ghana 

Maskette - Grebo, Côte d'Ivoire - Early 20th century

Ibeji twin figures - Yoruba, Nigeria - Early 20th century

Female figurine - Senufo, Côte d'Ivoire or Mali - Early 20th century

Stool or headrest - Bongo, Sudan - Early 20th century

Stool - Sudan - Early 20th century

Ivory bracelet - Culture unknown (African)

Masai arm ornament - Kenya or Tanzania - Early 20th century

Headrest - Bari, Sudan - Late 19th or early 20th century

Snuff container - Sotho, Lesotho - Late 19th or early 20th century

Snuff container - Sotho, Lesotho - Late 19th or early 20th century

Pipe with figural bowl - Xhosa, South Africa - 19th or early 20th century

Ladle with figural handle - Zulu, South Africa - Late 19th or early 20th century

Headrest - Tsonga, South Africa - Late 19th or early 20th century

Zulu Headrest and Two Tsonga Headrests from the Headrest Collection

Jacaranda Tribal is pleased to announce a new exhibition of African headrests from across the continent. We have many rare and fine headrests available for viewing at JacarandaTribal.com.

Zulu Headrest from South Africa. We are very fortunate to have this Zulu headrest in the collection. It is a fine example of a double headrest (as you can see, each “criss-cross” is a distinct headrest) carved from a single piece of wood. The piece is carved with alternating dark and light triangles on both the upper and lower portions of the piece. Experts believe that this headrest was created by a renownded master artist and carver from Natal and that other pieces by this artist exist in collections.

Tsonga Headrest from South Africa. This object is exceptionally fine and rare for neckrests with carrying handles are particularly rare and desirable. This one has a handle in the form of a dance staff that is such a length as to allow the end of the handle to rest on the floor surface.

In addition to the carrying handle, this headrest is carved with five parallel rows of fine rots carved in relief. As a male was sleeping, these dots would have formed temporary indentations into his face—indentations that resembled the facial scarification patterns of the Northern Nguni women. This would have caused much amusement.

The piece has developed a very fine patina from many years of use.

Tsonga Headrest from Mozambique.

There are around two dozen headrests with zoomorphic and anthropomorphic features illustrated in the literature on the art of Southeast Africa. But this headrest from Mozambique is the only example that evokes both the human figure and a four-legged animal figure at once. Female genitalia and breasts are carved on the underside. The figure also has a strange tail and wears a flat, circular hat. It is an incredible depiction and most certainly one of the only, if not the only, examples of its kind.

The aesthetic of this headrest is distinctive and unlike others in Southeast African art. It is certainly worth a look at this very fine example of a master carver and artist’s work.

African Dream Machines - A Book Review

I recently received a copy of the soft cover book African Dream Machines: Style, Identity and Meaning of African Headrests. The book was written by Anitra Nettleton, a professor of the Wits School of Art in Johannesburg and the author of many influential books on the material culture of southern Africa.

Below is an excerpt from the press release:

African headrests have been moved out of the category of functional objects and into the more rarefied category of ‘art’ objects. Styles in African headrests are usually defined in terms of western art and archaeological discourses, but this book interrogates these definitions of style through a case study of headrests of the ‘Tellem’ of Mali, and demonstrates the shortcomings of defining a single formal style model as exclusive to a single ethnic group.

African Dream Machines questions the assumed one-to-one relationship between formal styles and ethnic identities or classifications by tracing the distribution of a single formal headrest type – those with a single column support and round, conical base. The notion of ‘authenticity’ as a fixed value in relation to African art is de-stabilised, while historical factors are used to demonstrate that ‘authenticity’, in the form sought by collectors of antique African art, is largely a construct, which has no basis in historical reality. The final chapter seeks to understand the significance of African headrests in relation to a number of different perspectives: the western fascination with the headrest as a synecdoche for “otherness”; their iconography in terms of subject matter (human and animal figures); and the ways in which headrests are used as support to the head of a sleeping person.

The book is published by the University of the Witwatersrand Press . It is available now in the U.S. at Transaction Publications and will be available in March, 2008 at Amazon.com

Daniel Rootenberg
JacarandaTribal.com