Furniture & Utilitarian Objects

« Inquire About This Item » Medium-sized Tutsi baskets are built up from a split wood frame interwoven with interlacings of traditionally dyed grasses rather than the coilwork of their smaller counterparts. These baskets are firmer to the touch but less tightly woven owing to the less pliable nature of the materials involved. The lids are tight-fitting and snap firmly into place. A separately woven ring acting as the basket's base is sewn to the bottom with bush fiber. After 1960. 13" tall. $800. « Inquire About This Item » View Number 2 « Inquire About This Item » View Number 3 « Inquire About This Item » View Number 4	« Inquire About This Item » "Coil-sewn baskets (agaseki) with conical lids were made by Tutsi women of the aristocracy. The fine coil sewing and the precisely worked-out spiral patterns, many of which have names, were time-consuming and called for exact calculations in the stitching. By the 1930s, imported dyes had expanded the range of available colors (the natural pale gold of the grass and black and white) to include green, orange, and mauve. Earlier baskets such as these lidded ones show a delicacy of design that later examples, made at craft centers for sale to tourists, lack. Baskets made in Rwanda have a plain, undecorated lid; lids of those made in Burundi may be patterned." MC. From "Africa, the Art of a Continent", page 155, edited by Tom Phillips. 8" tall $575 « Inquire About This Item » View Number 2	« Inquire About This Item » A large and exceptionally beautiful mid-20th-century gourd used for the serving of palm wine on festive occasions. A cradle and handle fabricated from woven reed surround the vessel. Vertical strands bind the base, and sections of interlocking loops wind around the collar. Only the gourd's spout is bare. A bouquet of basket material with knotted ends blocks the throat. The purpose of the bouquet is both decorative and practical, intended to thwart the entry of vermin who love turning empty containers into cozy nests. 18" tall. Price on request	« Inquire About This Item » This extremely elegant and richly patinated calabash is from the western Grassfields. Calabashes are raised on farms, hollowed out, and dried to make sturdy, long-lasting, and remarkably lightweight vessels, bowls, and eating and cooking utensils. Hundreds of varieties of the plant are bred across Africa and around the world. This calabash has an unusually long and narrow neck. A rattan base and handle have been woven onto it. The binding does not pierce the vessel, but holds it firm. 22.5" tall. Price on request	« Inquire About This Item » Bottle gourds of this size and shape, both decorated and plain, come from the Oromo valley in Ethiopia. A number of tribes inhabit this vast region. After having looked through hundreds of field photographs, I've determined that this gourd is probably Konso. Numbers of such containers hang on the walls of Konso huts from leather straps tied around their pinched necks. Here the strap is stiff, oily, and split on one side. A pattern of joined, cross-hatched triangles has been incised around the mouth of the vessel. A similar pattern is used to decorate headrests indigenous to the region. The body of the vessel was cracked ages ago and lovingly repaired. The repairs consist of fine strands of interlocking rattan sewn through the gourd. The surface of the gourd came to me cleaned of soot. 8" tall. $650.
« Inquire About This Item » I have been unable to pin down the tribal origin of this large storage gourd. A dozen or so of these arrived in a shipment from Nigeria in the mid-1990s. I bought only one and put it away along with the one lid in the group. Over the years, smaller collections of these gourds appeared sporadically among the wares of Gambian merchants who deal in Nigerian artifacts and beads. The gourds were all roughly the same size, with the same dry patina and pale color. Their woven collars were just as consistent, minimally decorated but sturdy and finely crafted. They are similar in material and color to baskets from northern Nigerian peoples, in particular the Hausa. My conclusion is that they were most likely used for the storage of grain in considerable numbers. The lack of oily or smoky patination strongly suggests that they were kept far away from daily activities and cooking fires, perhaps in a hut reserved for provisions. 22.5". $400.	« Inquire About This Item » Across the African continent gourds are used for the storage of dry goods. They are lightweight, durable, and relatively resistant to rodents. In the Grassfields of northwest Cameroon, the Bamileke and their neighbors carve small doors into cultivated gourds while they are still fresh and supple. By cutting on a bias and creating triangular or trapezoidal shapes, the cutouts can later be replaced in the openings to form neatly fitting doors. Series of woven loops are made on the gourd and the cutout, producing a locking device. After the container is hollowed out and dried, it is fitted with a length of cord affixed through a hole at the top. It can then be stocked with anything from chilies to medicinal herbs and stored out of the way of children and rats from the walls or rafters. In this example the door takes the form of an unusual polygon. Price on request.	« Inquire About This Item » Across the African continent gourds are used for the storage of dry goods. They are lightweight, durable, and relatively resistant to rodents. In the Grassfields of northwest Cameroon, the Bamileke and their neighbors carve small doors into cultivated gourds while they are still fresh and supple. By cutting on a bias and creating triangular or trapezoidal shapes, the cutouts can later be replaced in the openings to form neatly fitting doors. Series of woven loops are made on the gourd and cutout, producing a locking device. After the container is hollowed out and dried, it is fitted with a length of cord affixed through a hole at the top. It can then be stocked with anything from chilies to medicinal herbs and stored out of the way of children and rats from the walls or rafters. This gourd has a particularly beautiful shape. 12". Sooty brown-black patina. Price on request	« Inquire About This Item » Across the African continent gourds are used for the storage of dry goods. They are lightweight, durable, and relatively resistant to rodents. In the Grassfields of northwest Cameroon, the Bamileke and their neighbors carve small doors into cultivated gourds while they are still fresh and supple. By cutting on a bias and creating triangular or trapezoidal shapes, the cutouts can later be replaced in the openings to form neatly fitting doors. Series of woven loops is made on the gourd and cutout, producing a locking device. After the container is hollowed out and dried, it is fitted with a length of cord affixed through a hole at the top. It can then be stocked with anything from chilies to medicinal herbs and stored out of the way of mischievous children and rats from the walls or rafters. A small piece of this gourd's door, 1/4" square, has been lost, and the gourd has been partially cleaned of its sooty patina. The underlying surface reveals itself to be deeply patinated and richly colored. 12'. $450.	« Inquire About This Item » This beautifully patinated and well used headrest or izigqiki has a rich color and is well worn from decades of use. It has a spare, architectonic aesthetic of robust, minimally detailed rectangular supports juxtaposed with narrow negative spaces. The base and platform are striking delicate. A similar example appears on page 116 of Zulu Tribal Art by Alex Zaloumis. 5" high by 12.5 wide. Price: $2,200 « Inquire About This Item » View Number 2 « Inquire About This Item » View Number 3
« Inquire About This Item » A well balanced and finely rendered headrest from the Dinka of southern sudan. 11" long. Decades of civil war in the Sudan prevented the region's ethnographic riches from reaching the western market until the mid 1990s when a political thaw in the conflict and Ugandan military activities opened routes into the southern frontier that had previously been too dangerous. Within two years the flow of artifacts was well infiltrated with newly made confections; after five it was subsumed. This piece was purchased early and is well used. It is carved from a dense savanna hardwood, honestly patinated. 17" long, 7" high. Price on request. « Inquire About This Item » View Number 2 « Inquire About This Item » View Number 3	« Inquire About This Item » My experience with the art of Burkina Faso stretches back more than 20 years and in that time this is the only cast headrest or stool I have encountered from the region. The form is also something of an anomaly irelative to wooden seats from not only Burkina but West Africa in general. Nevertheless, the piece came to me from a very reliable source with a number of old and righteous Lobi figures, Nuna flutes and the like. The detailing is consistent with Bobo bronzes. Its patina is variegated and deep. The bottom edges are worn. The surface bears signs of dings and minor scratches one would expect from a headrest kept in daily household use for many years. All in all a remarkable headrest and a unique bronze. 10" long and 5" high. $1100 « Inquire About This Item » View Number 2 « Inquire About This Item » View Number 3	« Inquire About This Item » The form of this lovely stool is similar to published examples (African Seats, etc.) identified as Lega. An even more similar stool, also identified as Lega, has been in the collection of the American Museum of Natural History since 1954. While the AMNH stool lacks the zigzag contours of the legs as well as the carved edge details and floral incising seen here, the pyro-work, patination and scale are very close. It's possible that the stool is from a neighboring tribe such as the Wanandi or that the general form is broadly regional. Numerous tribes call Congo's eastern highlands home including the Mbuti Pygmies. Although the pygmies neither carve nor own substantial furniture the seat decoration calls to mind the calligraphy of their bark cloth and face painting. For decades this stool decorated a Belgian home. It was collected around mid century, before Congo's independence. 8.5" high x 13" diameter. $900 « Inquire About This Item » View Number 2 « Inquire About This Item » View Number 3	« Inquire About This Item » Marc Ginzberg's African Forms illustrates a gourd container with a similar design which he identifies as Mangbetu. He likens the interlocking pattern to leopard spots which may well have been the intention of the carver. This considerably larger gourd gourd (19" as compared to 11") hails from northern Cameroon and was the work of semi-nomadic Fulani. It represents the vertical half of a large hollowed-out, incised and blackened gourd. Fulani communities are scattered across West Africa from Senegal through the Central African Republic. It is a common sight to see Fulani women bringing milk to market in just such calabashes which are lightweight, remarkably durable and are well suited to personalized decoration. $475	« Inquire About This Item » This enormous calabash is similar to one illustrated in Marc Ginzberg's beautiful book African Forms. Its intricate geometric design expresses Fulani notions of world order and cosmology. In Cameroon nomadic Fulani (Wodabe) carry milk to market in gourds such as this, balancing them atop their heads with the aid of a cloth ring. Gourds are remarkably light weight and durable. If well cared for by their owners they may last a lifetime. Personalized decorations encourage such sentiments. From Mali to Chad It is not uncommon to see calabashes lovingly repaired from top to bottom. 19.5" diameter. Price on request
« Inquire About This Item » Gourds grow well in the cool, well watered highlands of Cameroon's Grassfields. Once hollowed out they make useful bottles and jars for fermenting palm wine and hanging dry goods out of harm's way from the rafters of huts. Gourds also make excellent resonators for musical instruments. Here a loose textile net strung with scores of wooden beads surrounds a large gourd to create an instrument known as a shekere. When spun in the hands and manipulated just so the shekere can be made to make a variety of remarkably loud, complex and rhythmic sounds. This old, well preserved and beautifully patinated example is an unusual find. 16" tall, unmounted. $600	« Inquire About This Item » "Coil-sewn baskets (agaseki) with conical lids were made by Tutsi women of the aristocracy. The fine coil sewing and the precisely worked-out spiral patterns, many of which have names, were time-consuming and called for exact calculations in the stitching. By the 1930s, imported dyes had expanded the range of available colors (the natural pale gold of the grass and black and white) to include green, orange, and mauve. Earlier baskets such as these lidded ones show a delicacy of design that later examples, made at craft centers for sale to tourists, lack. Baskets made in Rwanda have a plain, undecorated lid; lids of those made in Burundi may be patterned." MC. From "Africa, the Art of a Continent", page 155, edited by Tom Phillips. 8.5" tall $575 « Inquire About This Item » View Number 2	« Inquire About This Item » "Coil-sewn baskets (agaseki) with conical lids were made by Tutsi women of the aristocracy. The fine coil sewing and the precisely worked-out spiral patterns, many of which have names, were time-consuming and called for exact calculations in the stitching. By the 1930s, imported dyes had expanded the range of available colors (the natural pale gold of the grass and black and white) to include green, orange, and mauve. Earlier baskets such as these lidded ones show a delicacy of design that later examples, made at craft centers for sale to tourists, lack. Baskets made in Rwanda have a plain, undecorated lid; lids of those made in Burundi may be patterned." MC. From "Africa, the Art of a Continent", page 155, edited by Tom Phillips. 9" tall $575 « Inquire About This Item » View Number 2	« Inquire About This Item » Often erroneously described as whistles Bamileke flutes have a distinctive shape that incorporate zoomorphic and anthropomorphic elements in a supremely functional design. Such flutes are carried on a loop of twine or braided leather threaded through holes in the closed end and worn around the bearer's neck. Hanging in this way the flute can be interpreted as a human figure with the holes as eyes, the projecting stops as arms and the terminal "fins" as legs. When played it is inverted and the terminal fins, projecting stops and hanging holes become, respectively, the horns, eyes and nostrils of a buffalo head. Forest buffaloes are vital icons in Bamileke culture, appearing frequently in folklore and as characters in masked dances. This flute has been mounted so as to evoke a human figure. 7" tall. $500 « Inquire About This Item » View Number 2 « Inquire About This Item » View Number 3	« Inquire About This Item » Often erroneously described as whistles Bamileke flutes have a distinctive shape that incorporate zoomorphic and anthropomorphic elements in a supremely functional design. Such flutes are carried on a loop of twine or braided leather threaded through holes in the closed end and worn around the bearer's neck. Hanging in this way the flute can be interpreted as a human figure with the holes as eyes, the projecting stops as arms and the terminal "fins" as legs. When played it is inverted and the terminal fins, projecting stops and hanging holes become, respectively, the horns, eyes and nostrils of a buffalo head. Forest buffaloes are vital icons in Bamileke culture, appearing frequently in folklore and as characters in masked dances. This flute has been mounted so as to evoke a human figure. A feather remains in the central cavity- a customary practice employed to discourage nesting insects and spiders. 7.5" tall. $500 « Inquire About This Item » View Number 2 « Inquire About This Item » View Number 3
« Inquire About This Item » Often erroneously described as whistles Bamileke flutes have a distinctive shape that incorporate zoomorphic and anthropomorphic elements in a supremely functional design. Such flutes are carried on a loop of twine or braided leather threaded through holes in the closed end and worn around the bearer's neck. Hanging in this way the flute can be interpreted as a human figure with the holes as eyes, the projecting stops as arms and the terminal lobes as legs. When played it is inverted and the terminal lobes, projecting stops and hanging holes become, respectively, the horns, eyes and nostrils of a buffalo head. Forest buffaloes are vital icons in Bamileke culture, appearing frequently in folklore and as characters in masked dances. This flute has been mounted so as to evoke a human figure. 7.5" tall. $500 « Inquire About This Item » View Number 2 « Inquire About This Item » View Number 3	« Inquire About This Item » Dinka headrests are notably larger than those of their neighbors. They also come in a remarkable variety of standardized styles. Among the rarer types are relatively short, compact headrests with handles dug into their undersides and pegged in legs. The Dinka are justly famous for their remarkable wooden sparring shields: long, narrow affairs with similarly fashioned handles carved at the mid point. The similarity to the handle here is too great to dismiss as coincidental: beyond headrests, shields and staffs the Dinka produce only a modest assortment of carved objects. When one adds the detail of the removable legs- unique to this family of Dinka headrests- there can be little doubt the this model was designed as a portable shield- if only for play fighting. Its rich patina, considerable wear and oxidation affirm its many years of use. True to the Dinka aesthetic the deeply curved back, humped ends and wattled throat are proportioned like a bull. 7" high. Brass collars fashioned from spent ammunition on two legs. Price on request. « Inquire About This Item » View Number 2 « Inquire About This Item » View Number 3 « Inquire About This Item » View Number 4	« Inquire About This Item » While the vast majority of traditional sub-Saharan seats are carved from a single block of wood, African furniture makers can not be accused of hewing to the principle. In the west European style chairs were emulated very early on while along the Swahili coast on up into Ethiopian plateau Arab and Indian influences held sway. The joinery employed in this small chair is simple but effective. The proportions, rope seat and details draw heavily on Indo-Arabian styles while over all the chair remains recognizably African in its free handed execution and details. First quarter of the 20th century. 30" tall. $450 « Inquire About This Item » View Number 2 « Inquire About This Item » View Number 3