Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Prestige Staff of Henrique III
Not on view
One-to-one associations between staffs of office that have been preserved in the West and the identity of the leaders who wielded them have rarely been recorded. An unusual exception is this wood staff encased in metalwork owned by the Kongo king Henrique III (r. 1842–57). Its abstract repeating pattern of intersecting lozenges on the grip is evocative of other forms of Kongo decorative arts. A pair of orbs relate to key points in Henrique’s reign, while the lozenges allude to the network of ancestors that grants chiefly power. That connection is further underscored through the staff’s iron tip, designed to be planted into the earth, uniting the king with his forebears.
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