West African Art at the British Museum

Starting in the beginning of March, the British Museum will host “Kingdom of Ife: Sculptures from West Africa.” According to the museum, this major exhibition resents examples of brass, copper, stone and terracotta sculpture from West Africa.

The Kingdom of Ife (pronounced ee-feh) was a powerful, cosmopolitan and wealthy city-state in West Africa (in what is now modern southwest Nigeria).

Ife flourished as a political, spiritual, cultural and economic centre in the 12th–15th centuries AD, and was an influential hub of local and long-distance trade networks.

The exhibition features pieces of Ife sculpture, drawn almost entirely from the magnificent collections of the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Nigeria.

The artists of Ife developed a refined and highly naturalistic sculptural tradition in stone, terracotta, brass and copper to create a style unlike anything in Africa at the time. The technical sophistication of the casting process is matched by the artworks’ enduring beauty.


The human figures portray a wide cross-section of Ife society and include images of youth and old age, health and disease, suffering and serenity.

The exhibit will run through the beginning of June.

Southern African Art Auction Records

Sotho horn snuff bottle: Sotheby's Paris December 2007 - Lot 101 Euro 72,000


Even experienced collectors are surprised when I tell them how well southern African art has performed as an investment over the last 15 years. Over the next few weeks I will be posting a few record-setting objects from past auctions.

Collectors should note that most of the great southern African objects are sold privately and thus won't be reflected here. Objects have reached in the $25,000 to $350,000 range and it won't be long before they reach the half million dollar mark - not bad for utilitarian objects seen as nothing more than decorative or ethnographic material until a few years ago.

The growth in value has been driven by a number of factors: the landmark exhibition of the Lowen (now Oppenheimer) collection in the 1990's; the championing of the art by dealers and collectors such as Conru, Guisson and Horstmann; the publication of numerous new books on private collections which have served to educate the collecting public.


Tsonga neckrest: Sotheby's Paris December 2006 - Lot 227 Euro 74,400

Nelson-Atkins Gift for 75h: Royal Staff Finial

Royal Staff Finial, African, Kongo Kingdom, Yombe peoples, Democratic Republic of the Congo, 17th – 18th century. Ivory with palm oil, 7 7/8 x 2 ¾ x 1 ½ inches. Promised gift of Adele and Donald Hall in honor of the 75th anniversary of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 12.2001.11.

The ivory figure, half female and half leopard, appears to represent a founding ancestress of the Yombe. The royal woman holds two gourds that may contain potent medicines associated with rulers’ occult powers. The snarling leopard with its serpent-headed forepaws is a fearsome representation of royal authority and military prowess. Two spiraled staffs flanking the leopard may be royal mvwala staffs drawing power from the earth and ancestral dead. Ivory and the warm, red tone of this figure, achieved through the application of red palm oil, represent powerful spiritual forces.

Nelson-Atkins Gift for 75th: Seated Female Figure

Seated Female Figure, African, Baule peoples, Ivory Coast, early 20th century. Wood, 14 ½ inches. Promised gift of Adele and Donald Hall in honor of the 75th anniversary of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 14.2010.1.

This serenely composed figure, adorned with armlets and waistbeads, displays the idealized traits of a Baule spirit wife: an elegant coiffure, beautifying scarification and filed incisors. According to customary beliefs, all men and women have other-world mates with powers to influence their human partners’ lives. Sculptural representations of one’s spirit spouse could be commissioned for a shrine situated in the privacy of one’s sleeping room.
Royal Staff Finial,

Nelson-Atkins Gift for 75th: Personal Shrine Figure

Personal Shrine Figure, African, Igbo peoples, Nigeria, ca. 1900. Wood and pigment, 29 ½ x 9 ¾ x 10 ¼ inches. Promised gift of Adele and Donald Hall in honor of the 75th anniversary of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 12.2001.9.

This masterfully carved personal shrine figure is one of the most important Igbo ikenga figures, or those dedicated to male power and achievement. Rams’ horns symbolize male aggression and determination, and the curved sword symbolizes decisive action. The eagles and python-reigning creatures of sky and water allude to supreme achievement in life, including military endeavors. Human trophy heads symbolize military success, and European pith helmets on the trophy heads express continuing power despite the challenges of colonial rule.

African Art Scam Alert

It's a strange feeling to be offered for sale an object that you already own - something that happened to me today. This ongoing scam is being perpetrated by a Kenyan conman.

The scammer surfs the internet for images of genuine African art and then offers these objects for sale (which he doesn't own) to collectors, via email. To entice a buyer, he offers the objects at a fraction of their true value. Buyers are asked to pay via Western Union. Obviously once payment is made, the objects are never shipped.

The scammer is presently emailing objects using the email address dugda2001@gmail.com.

Nelson-Atkins Gift for 75th: Female Spirit Mask

Female Spirit Mask, African, Punu peoples, Gabon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, 19th century. Wood and pigment, 10 x 6 ½ x 6 ½ inches. Promised gift of Adele and Donald Hall in honor of the 75th anniversary of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 10.2007.1.

Worldly, wise and peaceful, this beautiful mask with its elaborate coiffure and scarification captures the idealized beauty of a mature Punu woman. It is an outstanding example of masks of this type, which would have appeared in masquerades during funeral celebrations to represent a young woman’s spirit. Applications of white kaolin clay were associated with the spiritual realm to depict female and male ancestral spirits.