Pendant with Female Figure

While much of Luba art commemorates events in the history of Luba Empire (ca. 16th–late 19th century), delicate ivory pendants were made as personal items and worn in memory of the ancestors whom they portray. Along with shells, amulets, beads, and horns, ivory pendants were suspended by cords and worn diagonally across the chest. They were sometimes also attached to scepters carried by chiefs. Like much of Luba art, the pendants portray women. Luba women were powerful members of the royal court that held titles and had specific duties. Many women were also spirit mediums and therefore connected the world of the living to the world of the dead.

Pendants were made by professional sculptors out of elephant ivory, bone, or horn. While its texture and resistance to cracking made elephant ivory the material of choice, the thighbones of hippopotamuses allowed artists to achieve comparable effects; this pendant is made of wild pig or warthog tusk. Bodily contact through wear altered the whiteness of the pendants, creating the reddish hue visible in this example. Although this effect is prized by Western collectors, the Luba owners of such prized possessions would scrub the surfaces daily with water and abrasive sand to maintain a pristine, bone-white aesthetic. That treatment also blurred the features over time. Usually made without legs, pendants often showed women gesturing to their navel or holding their breasts, a sign of nurturing, respect, and—according to some Luba spokespersons—royal secrets (Roberts and Roberts, p. 109).

Luba pendants were widely collected by Westerners during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but they are no longer used today.


Enid Schildkrout, 2025
Curator Emerita, American Museum of Natural History