Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
No. 9. Sculpteur d’Ivoire (ivory sculptor)
Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Robert Visser German
Not on view
Loango coast ivory was in demand as early as the seventeenth century for its especially fine quality and whiteness. During the nineteenth century, purely ornamental sculptures in this medium produced by local Vili carvers were highly sought after by Western consumers. While some carvers worked entirely freehand from their imagination and observed experience, others reproduced pencil drawings or prints provided by European patrons. The composition featuring as many as one hundred figures was blocked out with a chisel from the base to the tip of a tusk following a spiral band around its surface. Exacting details were then fleshed out with finer blades and knives.
This image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.
