Kongo: Power and Majesty

LaGamma, Alisa

2015

308 pages

ARLIS/NA George Wittenborn Memorial Book Award, Winner (2015)

International Tribal Art Book Prize, Winner (2015)

PROSE Award for Excellence in Art Exhibitions, Honorable Mention (2015)

Foreword Reviews' Book of the Year Award, Gold Winner in Art (2015)

A Publishers Weekly Art, Architecture, and Photography Top Ten Book for 2015

This title is in print.

Description

Table of contents

About the authors

Praise

A fascinating account of the effects of turbulent history on one of Africa’s most storied kingdoms, Kongo: Power and Majesty presents over 170 works of art from the Kingdom of Kongo (an area that includes present-day Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Angola). The book covers 400 years of Kongolese culture, from the fifteenth century, when Portuguese, Dutch, and Italian merchants and missionaries brought Christianity to the region, to the nineteenth, when engagement with Europe had turned to colonial incursion and the kingdom dissolved under the pressures of displacement, civil war, and the devastation of the slave trade. The works of art—which range from depictions of European iconography rendered in powerful, indigenous forms to fearsome minkondi, or power figures—serve as an assertion of enduring majesty in the face of upheaval, and richly illustrate the book’s powerful thesis.

Met Art in Publication

Christ, Open-back cast brass, Kongo peoples; Kongo Kingdom — Christ
18th–19th century

Cross with Saint Anthony of Padua, Kongo artist, Solid cast brass, lead-tin alloy sheet, wood, Kongo — Cross with Saint Anthony of Padua
Kongo artist
16th–18th century (pendant figure); 19th century (cross)

Mangaaka Power Figure (Nkisi N’Kondi), Kongo artist and nganga, Yombe group, Wood, iron, resin, ceramic, plant fiber, textile, pigment, Kongo — Mangaaka Power Figure (Nkisi N’Kondi)
Kongo artist and nganga, Yombe group
Second half of the 19th century

Christ, Brass, Kongo peoples; Kongo Kingdom — Christ
18th–19th century

Christ, Solid cast brass with holes for nailing, Kongo peoples; Kongo Kingdom — Christ
18th–19th century

Crucifix, Solid cast brass (Christ), solid cast copper alloy (halo); hollow cast bronze (three end pieces), brass sheet (one end piece), solid cast copper alloy (Mary); forged copper and brass (nails), wood, Kongo peoples; Kongo Kingdom — Crucifix
16th–17th century with later additions

Crucifix, Kongo artist, Solid cast brass, Kongo — Crucifix
Kongo artist
16th–17th century

Triple Crucifix, Kongo artist, Open-back cast brass (central figure), solid cast brass (top and bottom figures), forged iron nails, brass, copper, wood, ultramarine pigment, Kongo — Triple Crucifix
Kongo artist
16th–17th century (central figure); 18th–19th century (top and bottom figures)

Pendant: Saint Anthony of Padua, Partially hollow cast brass, Kongo peoples; Kongo Kingdom — Pendant: Saint Anthony of Padua
16th–19th century

Prestige Staff: Saint Anthony of Padua, Brass, wood, Kongo peoples — Prestige Staff: Saint Anthony of Padua
19th century

Figurative Element from Ceremonial Drum [?]: Seated Female and Child, Wood, pigment, resin, nails, Mbembe peoples — Figurative Element from Ceremonial Drum [?]: Seated Female and Child
15th–17th century

Staff : Finial with Kneeling Female Figure, Master of Kasadi Workshop, Wood, iron, metal strips, Kongo peoples; Yombe group — Staff : Finial with Kneeling Female Figure
Master of Kasadi Workshop
19th–early 20th century

Engraving of Firearms Parts, Perrier French, Ink on paper, French, Strasbourg — Engraving of Firearms Parts
Perrier
ca. 1750

Citation

Chicago

MLA

APA

Giuntini, Christine, James Green, Ellen G. Howe, Adriana Rizzo, Kristen Windmuller-Luna, Alisa LaGamma, Phyllis Martin, John K. Thornton, Josiah Blackmore, and Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), eds. 2015. Kongo: Power and Majesty. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Kongo: Power and Majesty

Met Art in Publication

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