PILAT 2013 153 FIG. 10 (right): Female figure from the upper Cavally River region. Pictured on p. 109. FIG. 11 (below): A presentation of masks and other items collected by Lieutenant Woelffel displayed at the Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1900. Pictured on p. 100, fig. 62. FIG. 12: Dan spoon. Pictured on p. 107. Alain Schoffel Collection. since its beginnings. For example, I was happy to find an in-situ photograph taken by Pobeguin in 1896 of a Baule figure found by Delafosse and then to be able to relate the story of its astonishing peregrinations from Toumoudi to the Tervuren Museum. I decided to illustrate this historical voyage through the savannas and forests of Côte d’Ivoire with photographs that our own ancestors took of the various cultural groups they encountered at each stage of their early exploration of the region. As a testimony to its own decades-long interest in this region, the gallery wanted every sculpture illustrated in the book to have passed through the hands of a member of the Schoffel-Valluet family at one time or another during their second life, far away from Côte d’Ivoire. TAM: Lastly, how has delving into the origins of collecting history in the area helped improve your understanding of Côte d’Ivoire art? BG: Writing this book has been an enlightening experience. I took great pleasure in learning about the personalities—sometimes very endearing ones—of the first French people who showed interest in the artistic creations of the people they encountered there. And it was equally amusing to follow them in their adventures and to be able to share in their interesting experiences, in the light tone in which they are often recounted in their travel journals. This research has made it possible for me to gain a better understanding of how objects circulated—first from the places where they were collected, and then from Côte d’Ivoire to Europe—and to question the wisdom of classifying these works according to overly precise cultural criteria. Familiarity with the many travel accounts leads to an understanding of the importance that migrations and incessant population movements had in the region. The examination of administrators’ reports underscores the difficulties the newly established regime encountered when trying to organize widely diverse peoples into “ethnic groups” that could be readily identified and controlled. The same goes for material culture, which, rather than being assigned to one or another particular and duly labeled culture, more properly should be seen as being associated with a “style area” or “center.” Anyone who can definitively distinguish an Agni sculpture from Indenie from one made in the Lagoon area, or a Guro object from another from the neighboring Bete, is very clever indeed. The collection sites that the pioneer collectors mention often give us reason to question the ideas we have been given and tend to show that art does not know borders in these areas.
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