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Oct 27, 2009

Figure

possibly early 1400s

Africa, West Africa, Sierra Leone, Sapi-style carver

Soapstone

Overall: 23.8 x 11.2 x 12.5 cm (9 3/8 x 4 7/16 x 4 15/16 in.)

Gift of Lucile Munro in memory of her husband Thomas Munro, Curator of Education from 1931 to 1967 1976.29

Location

108A Sub-Saharan

Description

The most varied group of soapstone figures and heads has been found in the homelands of the Kissi. Calling them pomda ("images of the dead"), the Kissi placed them in ancestral shrines, offering them the last seeds at sowing times and the first fruits of the harvest. However, the sculptures are believed to have been made centuries ago by the ancestors of the Kissi, the so-called Sapi people.

Provenance

Heim, Paris

Heim, Paris; Dr. and Mrs. Thomas Munro

Citations

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 410 archive.org

Petridis, Constantijn. South of the Sahara: selected works of African art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2003. Reproduced: cat. 10, p. 50 - 51

William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, and Ralph T. Coe. The Imagination of Primitive Man: A Survey of the Arts of the Non-Literate Peoples of the World. Kansas City, Mo: The Museum, 1962. Mentioned: p. 20, cat. no. 25; reproduced: p. 21

Robbins, Warren M., and Nancy Ingram Nooter. African Art in American Collections, Survey 1989. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989. Reproduced: p. 153, fig. 280

Exhibition history

Kansas City, MO: Nelson Atkins Museum, The Imagination of Primitive Man, 1962 cat. no. 25

Washington, DC: National Gallery, African Sculpture, cat. no. 3, repr.

CMA 1977: "Year in Review 1976," Bulletin LXIV (February 1977), cat. no. 36, p. 74, repr. p. 72.

International Exhibition Foundation

Gainesville, FL: Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, 10/13/97 - 2/1/98 African Art: Permutations of Power (no catalogue)

Year in Review, 1976. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 1-March 6, 1977).

African Art: Permutations of Power. Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art (organizer) (October 13, 1997-February 1, 1998).

Cite this page

{{cite web|title=Figure|url=https://clevelandart.org/art/1976.29|year=possibly early 1400s|access-date=25 September 2023|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

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Africa, West Africa, Sierra Leone, Sapi-style carver

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