Figure: Seated Female Nursing Child
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.This pensive mother is framed at the summit by an mpu cap of leadership and at the base by a rectangular platform; its crown features a star motif and the sides of the thin dais at the base are adorned with a bold, linear zigzag. Her left hand cradles the head of the infant who draws sustenance from her left breast. Its body merges with that of its mother’s lap and is held in place by her right hand. The provenance of this work, collected in the Boma-Vonde region before 1913, has been used to identify the author responsible for it and a series of closely related sculptures that share a distinct artistic vision.
Artwork Details
- Title: Figure: Seated Female Nursing Child
- Artist: Master of the Boma-Vonde Region
- Date: 19th–early 20th century, inventoried 1913
- Geography: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Boma-Vonde region
- Culture: Kongo peoples; Yombe group
- Medium: Wood, kaolin
- Dimensions: H. 9 3/8 in. (23.7 cm), W. 3 1/4 in. (8.2 cm), D. 4 in. (10.1 cm)
- Classification: Wood-Sculpture
- Credit Line: MIBACT–Polo Museale del Lazio, Museo Preistorico Etnografico Luigi Pigorini, Rome
- Curatorial Department: The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing