The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of December 19, 2025
Sifting Basket
before 1915
Overall: 39.4 cm (15 1/2 in.); Outside: 39.4 x 20.7 cm (15 1/2 x 8 1/8 in.)
Educational Purchase Fund 1915.464
Location: Not on view
Did You Know?
F. M. Rapp––who acquired this basket in Congo while working for a diamond mine––attended the Case School of Applied Science in Cleveland.Description
The Chokwe pounded maize into a course flour and then sifted it in order to separate the finest flour for cooking. This domestic object exhibits a refined, elegant artistry in its proportion, shape, and integrated woven textures.- by 1915(F. M. Rapp, probably by field collection in Portuguese West Africa (Angola) or Belgian Congo (Democratic Republic of Congo), sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)1915–by sale to the Cleveland Museum of ArtProvenance Footnotes1 "In the spring of 1916, Mr. F. M. Rapp, mining engineer, now at Tonopah, Nevada, returned from the Belgian Congo, Central Africa, where he has been engaged for two years in geological work along the Kasai River and its tributaries."M. G. Edwards, "Diamond-bearing gravel from Belgian Congo," American Mineralogist (1917) 2 (7): 88–89.
- Curnow, Kathy. At Home in Africa: Design, Beauty, and Pleasing Irregularity in Domestic Settings. The Galleries at Cleveland State University, 2014, cat. no. 1-3, pg. 46
- At Home in Africa: Design, Beauty and Pleasing Irregularity in Domestic Settings. The Galleries at Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 26-October 4, 2014).Cleveland Public Library, Cleveland Museum of Art Educational Extension display, Cleveland, OH, 1931.
- {{cite web|title=Sifting Basket|url=false|author=|year=before 1915|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1915.464