Makonde Madonna

Mozambique’s Mueda Plateau is the homeland of the southern Makonde, the majority of whom are Catholic. The Makonde resisted the slave trade and were not subdued by the colonial Portuguese until the 1920s. Since that time the Makonde have slowly given up their traditional practices of facial tattooing, scarification and the wearing of lip plugs in both men and women. Wood-carving evolved away from the traditional crafting of ritual figures, masks and all manner of housewares and utilitarian items such as sandals, and towards more modern fare such as crucifixes, Madonnas, and the genre of tourist souvenir carving, for which the Makonde are best known for their “Ujamaa” clusters of conjoined figures. The apparent European preference for carvings fashioned from ebony (Diosyros dendo, which grows only in West Africa) led Makonde sculptors to explore carving African blackwood (Dalbergia melanoxylon) and jackalberry (Diospyros mespiliformis). The latter two types of timber were hitherto unused by Makonde artists, as they are brittle and difficult to carve. The Madonna here, while carved in the naturalistic Binadamu style of Makonde blackwood carving, is actually carved from pau-rosa, which is less brittle than blackwood, long-lasting and holds detail well. The present example is well handled and has a luxurious patina. $1,200

14″

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