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Figure from a Reliquary Ensemble: Seated Male Holding Horn

19th century (before 1913)
Not on view
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.
In the fall of 1918, while in France in search of new material, De Zayas met Charles Vignier, who would become his main art supplier for the next two years. These two Fang reliquary elements were among the first works he sent to America; the Arensbergs purchased this figure as well as a free-standing head in May 1919. Whereas before 1918 the maximum price ever paid in New York for an African work was $200, the Arensbergs acquired the figure for $1,000 and the head for $3,500, an indication of the comparatively high prices charged by Vignier. It is possible that their reproduction in Carl Einstein’s 1915 Negerplastik, the most famous publication to date on African objects as art, drove the prices higher.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Figure from a Reliquary Ensemble: Seated Male Holding Horn
  • Date: 19th century (before 1913)
  • Geography: southern Cameroon, Lokoundje valley
  • Culture: Fang peoples, Ngumba group
  • Medium: Wood, metal strips
  • Dimensions: Height: 23 5/8 in. (60 cm)
  • Classification: Wood-Sculpture
  • Credit Line: Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950
  • Curatorial Department: The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing