Mother-and-Child Figure, late 1800s-early 1900s. Wearing an elaborate lobed headdress and a beaded waistbelt, and having filed teeth and red-powdered skin, this maternity figure seems to have once carried an ax and a cup, wooden imitations of the two most important chiefly attributes. Perhaps together with a male counterpart, it was secretly kept inside the ritual house, serving as a guardian of the chief’s treasure. Its style places it in the westernmost corner of Pendeland, between the Lutshima and Kwilu rivers.

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Size: 3678px × 6144px
Photo credit: © Heritage Art/Heritage Images / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: africa, art, beads, central, cleveland, congo, democratic, heritage, metal, museum, pende, republic, sculpture, unknown, wood