Artwork Page for Staff

Details / Information for Staff

Staff

1800s–1900s

The Baboon Master

(probably Tsonga peoples)
Culture
Africa, South Africa, South Africa or Mozambique, probably Tsonga peoples
Medium
Wood
Measurements
Overall: 120.7 cm (47 1/2 in.)
Credit Line
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund 2010.204
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
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Did You Know?

Artists working on the African continent often moved from place to place; the artist nicknamed The Baboon Master was of the Tsonga culture and worked in the Zulu kingdom.

Description

Arguably the finest surviving carving of the Baboon Master in a Western collection, this staff features exceptionally sophisticated articulation and detailing. The circular pokerwork motif on one side—which echoes the treatment of the ears on the male heads supporting the baboon—may represent a shield or a leaf. The heads feature the characteristic ornament that signifies maturity and marriage; covered with a mixture of gum, charcoal, and oil, this hairdo, called isicoco, employed a fiber or sinew ring into which the wearer’s hair was woven.
A dark-brown staff has red and orange undertones. Four-fifths of the staff is a narrow cylindrical pole on top of which two carvings of people face out and away from each other, their bodies bending back where their legs would begin and fusing together in a "U" shape behind them. Their disproportionately small hands rest on their stomachs. On top, a baboon braces two long legs on each of the flat caps the people wear.

Staff

1800s–1900s

The Baboon Master

(probably Tsonga peoples)
Africa, South Africa, South Africa or Mozambique, probably Tsonga peoples

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