The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 20, 2024

Ifá divination vessel (àgéré Ifá)

Ifá divination vessel (àgéré Ifá)

mid- late 1800s
Wood and colorant
Overall: 31.7 x 15.7 x 15.9 cm (12 1/2 x 6 3/16 x 6 1/4 in.)
Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund 1994.200
Location: not on view

Description

The mother figure of this vessel from the Southern Ekiti region represents a devotee who kneels before the gods. The vessel once held the 16 sacred palm nuts essential to divination rituals. The object was used by a priest as a medium through which to communicate with the god of fate, Orunmila, in order to gain insight into an individual’s destiny or to understand the cause of misfortune.
  • ca. 1979 to 1982-1994
    Charles Davis, by purchase in Togo ca.1979-1982
    by 1994
    (Davis Gallery, New Orleans, LA, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
    1994-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Cleveland Museum of Art, “New Acquisitions Enter the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Permanent Collection,” February 14, 1995, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives. archive.org
    Petridis, Constantijn. South of the Sahara: selected works of African art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2003. Reproduced: cat. 22, p. 74 - 75
    Cole, Herbert M. Maternity: Mothers and Children in the Arts of Africa.
    Brussels : Mercatorfonds, 2017 Mentioned and reproduced: p. 281-282, fig. 257
    Rondeau, James, Constantijn Petridis, Yaëlle Biro, Herbert M. Cole, Kassim Kone, Babatunde Lawal, Wilfried Van Damme, and Susan Mullin Vogel. The language of beauty in African art. 2022.
    "The Language of Beauty in African Art." Kimbell Art Museum Members' Guide (March–September 2022): 2-7. Reproduced: P. 4.
  • The Language of Beauty in African Art. Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX (April 3-July 31, 2022) https://kimbellart.org/exhibition/language-beauty-african-art; The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (organizer) (November 20, 2022-February 27, 2023) https://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/9344/the-language-of-beauty-in-african-art.
    Yoruba: Nine Centuries of African Art, 1989-1991.
  • {{cite web|title=Ifá divination vessel (àgéré Ifá)|url=false|author=|year=mid- late 1800s|access-date=20 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1994.200