The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 19, 2025

Dark brown staff with red and orange undertones. Four-fifths of the staff is a narrow cylindrical pole on top of which two carvings of people face out and away from each other, their bodies bending back where their legs would begin and fusing together in a "U" shape behind them. Their disproportionately small hands rest on their stomachs. On top, a baboon braces two long legs on each of the flat caps the people wear.

Staff

1800s–1900s

The Baboon Master

(probably Tsonga peoples)
Africa, South Africa, South Africa or Mozambique, probably Tsonga peoples
Wood
Overall: 120.7 cm (47 1/2 in.)
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund 2010.204
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

Artists working on the African continent often moved from place to place; the artist nicknamed The Baboon Master was of the Tsonga culture and worked in the Zulu kingdom.

Description

Arguably the finest surviving carving of the Baboon Master in a Western collection, this staff features exceptionally sophisticated articulation and detailing. The circular pokerwork motif on one side—which echoes the treatment of the ears on the male heads supporting the baboon—may represent a shield or a leaf. The heads feature the characteristic ornament that signifies maturity and marriage; covered with a mixture of gum, charcoal, and oil, this hairdo, called isicoco, employed a fiber or sinew ring into which the wearer’s hair was woven.
  • ?–2005 latest
    Private collection, United Kingdom
    2005
    (Sotheby's New York, NY, November 11, 2005, lot 161)
    2010
    (Jacaranda Tribal Art Gallery, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
    2010–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Sotheby's. "African and Oceanic Art." New York, Nov. 11, 2005, lot 161 and frontispiece.
    Franklin, David and C. Griffith Mann. Treasures from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art; London: Scala Publishers Ltd, 2012. Pg 246-7.
    Petridis, Constantine. "African Master Carvers." Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 57, no. 2 (March/April 2017): 32-33. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 32-33 archive.org
  • African Master Carvers: Known and Famous. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 26-July 16, 2017).
    The Cleveland Museum of Art (3/26/2017-7/16/2017); “African Master Carvers: Known and Famous”.
    The Art of Daily Life: Portable Objects From Southeast Africa. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 17, 2011-February 26, 2012).
    Cleveland Museum of Art, (4/16/11-2/26/12); "The Art of Daily Life: Portable Objects from Southeast Africa" cat. no. 55
  • {{cite web|title=Staff|url=false|author=The Baboon Master|year=1800s–1900s|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2010.204