The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 18, 2025

Ifá divination vessel (àgéré Ifá)

mid- late 1800s

Africa, West Africa, Nigeria, possibly Èkìtì State, Yorùbá-style carver

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
  • Fagg, William, John Pemberton, and Bryce Holcombe. 1982. Yoruba, Sculpture of West Africa. 1st ed. New York: Knopf : Distributed by Random House, pl. 15.
    New Orleans Museum of Art, University of Southwestern Louisiana University Art Museum, and Meadows Museum of Art. 1989. Shapes of Power, Belief, and Celebration : African Art from New Orleans Collections. New Orleans, Louisiana: New Orleans Museum of Art, cat. 72.
    Yoruba : Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought. 1989. New York: Center for African Art in association with H.N. Abrams Inc, fig. 229.
    Young-Sánchez, Margaret. 1997. “New Acquisitions : The Cleveland Museum of Art.” African Arts 30 (1), Winter 1997, p. 71.
    Petridis, Constantine. "A New Installation for African Art in Cleveland." Tribal 3, no. 36 (Autumn/Winter 2004): 68-73.
    Franklin, David, C. Griffith Mann, and Cleveland Museum of Art. 2012. Treasures from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, p. 242-3.
    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=18 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

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