FEATURE FIG. 15: Response by Emil Torday to George Gordon’s invitation to spend three months in Philadelphia cataloguing the museum’s newly acquired Congolese collection. UMPA, Office of the Director, Correspondence Gordon-Torday 1912. Photograph courtesy UMPA. FIGS. 16 and 17: Two anthropomorphic cups. Wongo people, Democratic Republic of the Congo. (16) Wood. H: 14.6 cm. Field collected by Emil Torday in the Congo Free State, 1900–7. Purchased from Emil Torday, London, 1913 (AF 1953). (17) Wood. H: 18 cm. Field collected by Emil Torday in the Congo Free State, 1900—7. Purchased from Emil Torday, London, 1913 (AF 1948). Images courtesy of the Penn Museum. Though rendered in a style that is usually identified as “Pende”—which is in reality one of their many substyles—these cups instead originate from the Wongo people, who copied their neighbors’ style for the decoration of their cups destined for the consumption of palm wine. More commonly made out of a gourd, the cups carved out of wood occasionally take the shape of a human head; and sometimes even two heads carved back-toback 110 in Janus style, typically resting on a pedestal; or, more rarely, of a full human figure. Much like the Penn Museum’s Luluwa headrest and the Yaka gourd stopper, such embellished cups celebrated the good taste and prestige of both their makers and users. It is not impossible, however, that some functioned as bravura pieces without any practical purpose. For more information, see especially Léon de Sousberghe, L’art Pende. Brussels: Académie royale de Belgique, 1958. C.P.
I-IVCoverT68 E_CoverF Vuvi
To see the actual publication please follow the link above