The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 24, 2024

Pipe bowl

Pipe bowl

early to mid-1900s
Wood, iron, and copper alloy
Overall: 6 x 7.4 x 24 cm (2 3/8 x 2 15/16 x 9 7/16 in.)
Jo Hershey Selden Fund 2008.152
Location: not on view

Description

Tobacco smoking had important social connotations in Central Africa, denoting age, status, and gender. Perhaps the enlarged hand expressed physical and spiritual powers and indicates that this work belonged to a chief.
  • dates unknown, by at least 1987
    Private collection, possibly France
    1990 or later
    possibly Galerie Ratton-Hourdé, Paris, France
    dates unknown
    Private collection, Belgium
    unknown-2008
    (Galerie Joaquin Pecci, Brussels, Belgium, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
    2008-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • 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. 41
    Petridis, Constantijn. Luluwa: Central African Art between Heaven and Earth. 2018, 169. Reproduced; p. 169, fig. 146
    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, 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=Pipe bowl|url=false|author=|year=early to mid-1900s|access-date=24 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2008.152