West African Loango Coast Kongo or Vili Peoples Carved Ivory Tusk
A West African Loango Coast Kongo or Vili Peoples Carved Ivory Tusk
19th Century
Size: 33.5cm long – 13¼ ins long
19th Century
Size: 33.5cm long – 13¼ ins long
Loango ivory carved tusks have their origins in the Afro-Portuguese ivory carvings produced at the end of the 15th century. Both were produced using traded European iron tools in African workshops along the Loango coast that specialised in making carved ivory objects for the foreign trade.
Evidence of the daily lives of the people, and all the commodities bought and sold in the area around the mouth of the Zaire river by European and African merchants alike can be found on these tusks. There are depictions of monkeys, birds, serpents and snakes and an antelope as well as people on this tusk.
The scenes are separate vignettes and not meant to be read as a continuous story line. The spiral band acts as a ground line for the procession of figures seen in profile and probably alludes to the path that the people believe the dead follow from earth to the ancestral realm and back again to be reborn.
Evidence of the daily lives of the people, and all the commodities bought and sold in the area around the mouth of the Zaire river by European and African merchants alike can be found on these tusks. There are depictions of monkeys, birds, serpents and snakes and an antelope as well as people on this tusk.
The scenes are separate vignettes and not meant to be read as a continuous story line. The spiral band acts as a ground line for the procession of figures seen in profile and probably alludes to the path that the people believe the dead follow from earth to the ancestral realm and back again to be reborn.
West African Loango Coast Kongo or Vili Peoples Carved Ivory Tusk
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