The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 14, 2025

Woman and Child

mid- to late 1800s

Africa, Central Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Yombe-style carver

Wood
Overall: 26.2 x 9.2 x 7.4 cm (10 5/16 x 3 5/8 x 2 15/16 in.)
Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund 2003.35
Location: Not on view

Description

This mother-and-child figure was probably part of a cult concerned with the treatment of infertility. Both her jewelry and her seated pose indicate that the woman occupied a high rank in her community. Her miter-shaped hairstyle, chiseled teeth, and raised body scars--considered to be marks of beauty and perfection--signal that the woman incarnates the founding ancestor of a kinship group.
  • 1920s
    Captain Isidore W. Mesmaekers, Belgian Congo
    his family, by descent (Belgium?)
    by at least 1984
    (J. P. Lepage Gallery, Brussels, Belgium)
    1984-2003
    (Mr. and Mrs. Willem Vranken-Hoet, Brussels, Belgium, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
    2003-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Kerchache, Jacques, Jean-Louis Paudrat, Lucien Stéphan, and Françoise Stoullig-Marin. 1993. Art of Africa. New York: H.N. Abrams, fig. 235.
    Debbaut, Jan, Dominique Favart, G. van Geertruyen, and Palais des beaux-arts (Brussels, Belgium). 1988. Utotombo : L’art D’afrique Noire Dans Les Collections Privées Belges : Société Des Expositions Du Palais Des Beaux-Arts, Bruxelles, 25 Mars-5 Juin 1988 Ed. française ed. Bruxelles: Palais des beaux-arts, cat. 159.
    "A selection of 2003 museum acquisitions." Apollo. Dec. 2003, vol. 158, no. 502. p. 48
    Petridis, Constantine. "A New Installation for African Art in Cleveland." Tribal 3, no. 36 (Autumn/Winter 2004): 68-73.
    Windmuller-Luna, Kristen. "An Obsession with Heads: The Impact of African Arts, Anthropology, and Photography on the Works of Alberto Giacometti," Medium (May 2022). medium.com
    Petridis, Constantijn. South of the Sahara: selected works of African art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2003. Reproduced: cat. 42, p. 114 - 115
    Cleveland Museum of Art. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 34
    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.
  • {{cite web|title=Woman and Child|url=false|author=|year=mid- to late 1800s|access-date=14 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2003.35