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STORIES IN IVORY 121 Lang was a German zoologist who, along with ornithologist James Chapin, led the American Museum Congo Expedition between 1909 and 1915. Sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History, they collected animals as well as anthropological objects during the course of their stay. Lang’s search for “pure” African art took him to Mangbetu territory to the northeast of the Congo region. On his way there, he discovered Loango ivories, which he compared in his accounts to the already famous ivories of Benin. According to him, neither Benin nor Loango works could be considered to be “real” African art because of the extent to which they had been shaped by foreign influences. Lang was not alone in this opinion concerning Loango ivories, and for decades since, scholars, museum curators, and collectors alike have regarded them as tourist art, by definition worthy neither of study nor of being coveted. In recent years, several studies have been published that have sought to change this perception, notably by Della Jenkins (2003) and Nichole Bridges (2009), but interest in the art form still remains marginal. My hope is that this article will contribute to kindling appreciation for this kind of tourist art and help encourage additional research on it that will bring about a better understanding of such works. Loango and Europe The first African sculptures in ivory produced exclusively for export to Europe date to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and are generically referred to as “Afro-Portuguese” ivories. Examples of these have been preserved in the cabinets of curiosities of European nobility. There were two centers of production, the first in Sierra Leone (Temne-Bullom) and the second in Nigeria (the Kingdom of Benin). Production was limited in scope and included trumpets, spoons, forks, and salt cellars. The trumpets and spoons were based on African models, and the forks and salt cellars on European ones (Bassani 1988: 13). After an initial relatively short period of flourishing production for these Afro-Portuguese objects, the production of ivory sculptures for the foreign market underwent a two-century-long halt, awaiting the establishment of a new production center. Loango ivories are named after the ancient kingdom that flourished along what is now the coast of the Congo and Cabinda (the non-contiguous northern province of Angola) in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Although geographically large, the Loango region had little power and was dominated by its influential neighbor, the Kingdom of Kongo. From the beginnings of the region’s first contacts with the Portuguese at the end of the fifteenth century, the latter took a dominant position in all dealings with Europe. This situation took a favorable turn for Loango in the seventeenth century, when the Kingdom of Kongo declined, weakened by the slave trade and internecine conflicts between its peoples. Loango assumed a preeminent position in the slave trade with Europe until this activity was abolished in 1860.6 As the Kongo kingdom declined, Europeans left it and moved north to the Loango coast. Most Loango ivories—estimates are that there are between 400 (Jenkins) and 1,000 (Ross) examples preserved worldwide—can be dated to between 1830 and 1900, with a particularly prolific period in the second half of the nineteenth century, which corresponds to the time during which a number of European trading companies became established in the Lower Congo region. The Nieuwe Afrikaanse Handelsvereniging was among these, and it collected actively, both to satisfy demand by influential commercial agents who were there and later by Dutch museums.7 Tourist Art Tourist art is an art of contact, born from an encounter between two cultures. The term itself is somewhat problematic. It carries a negative connotation in the minds of many, although its meaning is not clearly defined in academic literature. However, the term is useful for the designation of a category of objects and when I use it, it is intended to be in no way disparagingly or with the intention of saying something negative about a work. “Tourist art” within the context of the subject at hand refers to old Loango ivories created for external consumption and crafted by artists who, as we shall later see, sought to satisfy both their own creative impulses and the wishes and expectations of their buyers. To the latter, the sculpted tusk represented not only a souvenir but also a status symbol, given that ivory was, even then, a precious commodity. Beyond this, studies demonstrate that the buyer of tourist art made his selections based on criteria of identifiability, aesthetics, and functionality.8 Both the formal characteristics and the meaning of these types of works depend as much on the conceptions and expectations of the consumer as they do on those of the producer (Jules-Rosette, 1984). Tourist art combines indigenous elements with foreign ones to arrive at a compromise that the two parties are satisfied with. While in the case of Loango ivories, this joining of two worlds is clearly apparent, indigenous reality often seems to take the upper hand. For example, in many pieces, artists in-


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