African Arts Gallery

Collection of Belgian African art
Used daily and during divination rites, pacts, ritual ceremonies, this container offers curved sides highlighted by a large frieze. Slight chips on the edges. Dark, smooth slip. Satin black patina, minor chips.

Ex-Belgian African art collection.
Container of great sobriety of the Djenne type, whose orange slip shows through under a thin beige film. The edges of the neck are slightly damaged.
As the old Djenne sites are all in a flood zone, deeds emerge when the waters recede, the inhabitants sometimes discovering them by chance.
In the Mali Empire, terracotta sculptures with red engobe had a funerary connotation.

Offering container with a lid and topped with a head. Miniature figures follow one another in relief on the contours. Thick velvety kaolin patina. Slight chips.
The Ewe, often confused with the Minas, are the largest ethnic group in Togo. They are also found as minorities in Ghana, Benin, Ivory Coast and Nigeria. According to Hélène Joubert, the cults paid to the Yoruba gods, the orisha, and those of the Vodou gods, vodun, as well as their religious structure, are comparable in many respects. Slaves from different cultures further exported their practices to Cuba and Brazil. Although there is little historical information about the Ewe, it seems that their settlement in their current location resulted from invasions and conflicts that broke out during the 17th century.

Ceremonial terracotta container of circular shape with pinkish beige slip, drippings of white clay offerings. These pottery decorated the altars of dan in the places reserved for initiates and officiants. A snake is coiled around the pot, symbol of vodun dan and incarnation of ancestors among the Fon, borrowed from Yoruba myths. Raised elements are missing.
The Fon live in part of the Republic of Benin which formerly formed the Kingdom of Dahomey. According to legend, a princess of Yoruba origin created this kingdom before the 17th century.
The multitude of Fon gods (the vodun), comparable to those of the Yoruba under different names, are represented by fetishes of all forms and nature. Their sanctuaries are found in Togo, Dahomey, and western Nigeria. Statuettes embodying the ...

Collection of African art by the painter Amadeo Plaza Garcés.
The Ga'anda located on the border between Nigeria and Cameroon make terracotta intended for funeral rites, called Hlendeca (pl.).
Two types of Mbirlen'nda jars exist. One (Sambarca) is used to collect the spirit of the deceased while the second receives the ancestral spirit of the clan.
For a year the pottery of the deceased will accompany that of the clan within altars named Ketn Buuca. It is only at the end of this period that that of the deceased is broken to free his soul.
These potteries receive offerings to appease and receive the benevolence of the spirits. This example with a matt slip in a light gray tint with pink highlights represents an anthropomorphic female subject, and its ...

French collection of African tribal art.
Terracotta head inspired by Ifé commemorative portraits. Grainy black patina. Abrasions and cracks. In African art, the artistic movement to which this type of African works belongs is named after the ancient religious capital of Nigeria, Ifè, one of the many city-states established by the Yoruba. This civilization succeeded the Nok civilization. This city-state of Ilé-Ifé, whose growth peaked from the 12th to the 15th century, had an artistic tradition of royal portraits imbued with realism, funerary effigies in bronze but also in terracotta. The parallel folds drawn on the neck would evoke the folds of flesh of prosperous notables, and the hollowed out parts would have been used to secure the king's beaded veil.

Fragment of an anthropomorphic funerary figure in terracotta, of the type found during multiple excavations from 1985, in the far north of Ghana on the border of Burkina-Faso. These small sculptures, made from a mixture of clay and grainy sand, were named by local farmers "kronkronbali", which means children of yesteryear. It has been established through scientific investigations that these objects were created between the 13th and 19th centuries. They are renowned for their representation of entire characters but also for simple small heads. The lines are simple and the shapes are soft and rounded.

Jar with a human figurative motif, adorned with a juxtaposition of checkerboards, and a face on which are inscribed the traditional scarifications formerly in use among the Lwena.
Dark brown slip.
Of Lunda origin, the Lwena (or even Lovale , or Luvale ) emigrated from Angola to Zaire in the 19th century, pushed back by the Chokwe. Some became slave traders, others, the Lovales, found refuge in Zambia and near the Zambezi in Angola. Their society is matrilineal, exogamous and polygamous. The Lwena have become known for their honey-colored sculptures, embodying figures of deceased ancestors and chiefs, and their masks linked to the initiation rites of the mukanda.

Ritual object associated with the voodoo cult of the Fon and Ewe cultures of the coastal areas of Ivory Coast and Ghana, Togo and Benin. Made of ceramic, the object has a globular body surmounted by three heads and two lateral arms as handles. These terracotta sculptures were placed on the altars which received libations of millet groats. Patina in whites, beiges and pink ocher (very slight cracking under one arm)

Like the Legas, the Zimbas have educational sculptures associated with initiation rites, but they also have anthropomorphic sculptures, in this case in terracotta, with openings for magical charges at the top of the head.
Erosions, heterogeneous patina with residual ochre incrustations.
The Zimba, also called Binja, are close neighbors of the Lega of the Pangi and Shabunda region of the DRC. Subject to Lega influence, they share some institutional similarities with the Lega and Luba. Whether they live in the forest or in the savannah, the symbolism of their art and rituals are associated with hunting, which is of major importance. They are also patrilineal groups that have eventually supplanted the matrilineal organization of their society. Like the Lega, the ...