Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Portrait of Max Weber
Clara Sipprell American, born Canada
Not on view
This 1916 portrait of the American artist Max Weber (1881–1961) gazing at a Yaka biteki male figure from the Democratic Republic of the Congo captures the artist in a moment of aesthetic contemplation. Taken by Weber’s student Clara Sipprell, this photograph not only seizes a stereotypical image of the African art collector but also epitomizes America’s first encounter with African objects as art.
Between 1905 and 1908, while in Paris acquainting himself with the newest trends in art, Weber encountered African art, which had just started to appear in Parisian studios. When he returned to America in the first days of 1909, the artist brought with him the diminutive sculpture he holds in this picture, identified as the first African figure to reach America based primarily on its aesthetic appeal. In doing so, he anticipated New York’s discovery of African arts throughout the following decade.
This image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.
