A Loango, West African, Kongo Peoples Carved Ivory Tusk
A Loango, West African, Kongo Peoples Carved Ivory Tusk
Depicting a couple making love, a man with a megaphone and one with a umbrella, another with drums
Late 19th Century
Size: 51.5 cm high – 20¼ ins high
See Finch and Co catalogue no. 2, item no. 73, catalogue no. 4, item no. 52, catalogue no. 5, item no. 64, and catalogue no. 8, item no. 88, for other examples
Depicting a couple making love, a man with a megaphone and one with a umbrella, another with drums
Late 19th Century
Size: 51.5 cm high – 20¼ ins high
See Finch and Co catalogue no. 2, item no. 73, catalogue no. 4, item no. 52, catalogue no. 5, item no. 64, and catalogue no. 8, item no. 88, for other examples
Having their origins in the Afro Portuguese carvings of the 15th century, these Loango tusks are always relief carved in a spiral band. This acts as a ground-line for the procession of figures and animals, seen in profile, that travel single file to the tip of the tusk which is often decorated with a female head or figure.
It has been suggested that the spiralling pattern has a long history in the Kongo region and alludes to the path of reincarnation that the people believe the dead follow from earth to ancestral realm and back again to be reborn.
It has been suggested that the spiralling pattern has a long history in the Kongo region and alludes to the path of reincarnation that the people believe the dead follow from earth to ancestral realm and back again to be reborn.
A Loango, West African, Kongo Peoples Carved Ivory Tusk
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