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Africa, Central Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Luba-style carver / late 1800s-early 1900s

Female Bowl-Bearing Figure

The Cleveland Museum of Art catalogs Female Bowl-Bearing Figure as sculpture (Africa, Central Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Luba-style carver · late 1800s-early 1900s).

WHY IT’S INTERESTING

Symbolic of anvils, the round metal tacks decorating the figure's hair "pin" spirits and their secrets within it. They are at the hairline and each of the four hair cascades (the bottommost is now gone).

SERENDIPITYA little unexpected

FamiliarWeird

A CLOSER LOOK

The museum identifies this sculpture as Wood, glass beads, upholstery studs, plant fiber, and iron.

The museum's collection notes: In Luba-style art, an object's beauty affects how well it works. While bowl-bearing figures had many possible uses, a royal diviner likely used this well-carved image of a woman carrying a bowl in rituals. Dusty traces of mpemba (white chalk) fleck the shining exterior and the bowl's interior, showing it once held this sacred powder. Diamond-shaped scarification marks at her waist, chest, and back add to her beauty. Her hair is carved into the cascading layered hairstyle worn in the Luba region at the turn of the twentieth century. Strands of imported glass beads encircle her waist and neck, and dangle from her hair. The alternating white and

FOLLOW THE EVIDENCE

The Cleveland Museum of ArtFemale Bowl-Bearing Figure

Original explanation based on the sources above. Images carry their own reuse terms.