Cleveland Museum of Art

Carving

Date

c. 1900

Medium

ivory

Culture

Central Africa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kongo, early 20th century

Department

African Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Carved elephant ivory tusks and hippopotamus tooth ivory—whether large, or small, like this example—were sought-after souvenirs for Europeans who visited, lived, or worked on the coast of Central Africa. Vili carvers had been sculpting ivory for centuries. In the age of European commerce and colonialism, they created carefully observed tusks with representations of everyday life for European clients. While commissions, they also reflected what the artists chose to represent about their own societies, and sometimes about Europeans. In this small tusk, we see Congolese individuals wearing various clothing, from local-style waist wrappers to European brimmed hats. The spiral composition of this artwork has been used on carved ivories in the Kingdom of Kongo since the 1500s.

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