Portrait of El-Hajj Malik Sy with Umbrella
Not on view
This portrait is one of a series of suwer (or souwere, Wolof for reverse glass paintings) that carry variations of the same depiction, directly inspired by a ca. 1910 photograph of El-Hajj Malik Sy, caliph of the Tijaniya Sufi brotherhood between 1902 and 1922. At a time when photography was not yet, in Senegal, the preferred medium for popular images, glass paintings disseminated this and other portraits of Sufi religious leaders, while creating a new and original visual language. The additions, slippages, and variations seen within this group, speak of the artists’ ingenuity in creating not just mere reproductions but "new originals": comparing this suwer with the 1910 photograph, the mirrored portrait reveals the duplication technique employed to create the image, while the addition of a mosque in the background adds to the religious message that this devotional object could convey.
