The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 8, 2025

Mother-and-Child Figure

late 1800s–early 1900s

Africa, Central Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Pende-style maker

Wood, glass beads, upholstery studs, natural fiber, and pigment
Overall: 53.4 x 13.1 x 14.6 cm (21 x 5 3/16 x 5 3/4 in.)
Gift of the African Art Sponsors of Karamu House 1931.426
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

Eastern Pende carvers also once made larger mother-and-child sculptures to adorn the tops of chiefs' ritual houses.

Description

Wearing an elaborate lobed headdress and a beaded waistbelt, and having filed teeth and red-powdered skin, this maternity figure seems to have once carried an ax and a cup, wooden imitations of the two most important chiefly attributes. Perhaps together with a male counterpart, it was secretly kept inside the ritual house, serving as a guardian of the chief’s treasure. Its style places it in the westernmost corner of Pendeland, between the Lutshima and Kwilu rivers.
  • ?–1931
    Edgar Gustave "Guillaume" de Hondt, Brussels (?–1952)
    1931
    The African Art Sponsors of Karamu House
    1931—
    The Cleveland Museum of Art by gift
    Provenance Footnotes
    1 Name previously misspelled in records as Guillaume de Hondat
  • Wixom, William D. "African Art in the Cleveland Museum of Art." African Arts 10, no. 3 (1977): 16-25, 88, pp. 16-24, repr., fig. 10 (center).
    "Three Pieces of Negro Sculpture." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 19, no. 3 (March 1932): 38-39. Mentioned: p. 38-39 www.jstor.org
    Petridis, Constantine. “Mbala, Tsaam, or Kwilu Pende? A Mother-and-Child Figure from the Kwango-Kwilu Region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.” Cleveland Studies in the History of Art 7 (2002): 126–141. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 126-127, fig. 1 www.jstor.org
    Petridis, Constantijn. South of the Sahara: selected works of African art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2003. Reproduced: cat. 37, p. 104 - 105
    Cole, Herbert M. Maternity: Mothers and Children in the Arts of Africa.
    Brussels : Mercatorfonds, 2017 Reproduced and mentioned: pp. 150-151, fig. 126
    Petridis, Constantine. "A World of Great Art for Everyone." In Representing Africa in American Art Museums: A Century of Collecting and Display. Kathleen Bickford Berzock and Christa Clarke, 104-121. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2011. Mentioned: p. 111.
  • Object in Focus: Mother and Child Figure, 19th-early 20th century; Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mbala people (wood, beads; 1931.426). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 17-November 24, 2002).
    Cleveland, Ohio: The Cleveland Museum of Art; September 17- November 24, 2002. " Object in Focus: Mother and Child Figure, 19th-early 20th century; 1931.426."
    African Art. Karamu House, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 1-May 30, 1960).
    Cleveland, Ohio: Karamu House, March 1 - May 30, 1960: "African Art."
  • {{cite web|title=Mother-and-Child Figure|url=false|author=|year=late 1800s–early 1900s|access-date=08 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1931.426