Female ntiri (memorial head)
The Asante, Baule, and Anyi peoples belong to the Akan culture and language group. Since the second half of the sixteenth century, two traditions of terracotta sculpture produced by Akan women have played a role in funerary rites and memorialized the dead. While relief-decorated vessels are associated with the shrines of ordinary people, freestanding figures and heads were predominantly the prerogative of royalty. Enormous stylistic diversity is reflected in forms that range from seven to ten centimeters wide to lifesize and from hollow and sculpturally rounded to solid, flat, and circular.
Artwork Details
- Title: Female ntiri (memorial head)
- Artist: Akan artist
- Date: 17th century (?)
- Geography: Ghana, Adanse traditional area, Fomena (?)
- Culture: Akan
- Medium: Terracotta, applied patina
- Dimensions: H. 11 5/8 × W. 6 3/4 × D. 6 3/4 in. (29.5 × 17.1 × 17.1 cm)
- Classification: Ceramics-Sculpture
- Credit Line: The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Gift of Nelson A. Rockefeller, 1964
- Object Number: 1978.412.353
- Curatorial Department: The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing
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