Test test test 12093 idealized to the point that it is diffi cult to distinguish male fi gures from female ones at fi rst glance. The author of seven known mother-and-child fi gures, these are striking for the degree of detachment between the commanding seated woman from the secondary fi gure that extends across her lap. This artist has lavished attention on the dense abstract decorative graphic patterns that adorn the body to such a degree that the backs of his fi gures are as engaging as the fronts (fi g. 32c). The other outstanding talent responsible for at least four mother-and-child fi gures is known as the Master of Boma Vonde (fi gs. 22, 35, 36). In each of these, the head of the voluptuous seated female is given greater proportional emphasis than the body and there is a graceful integration of the secondary fi gure that is defi ned as a newborn. Across his oeuvre, the interaction between the female protagonist and the fi gure she nurses is striking for its fl uidity. The interplay between the two is very natural, one in which the infant’s body is fully enveloped within its mother’s and its head gently supported as it draws sustenance from her breast (see detail fi g. 35b). Harnessing Spiritual Power: Kongo Priests A foundational precept of the Kongo belief system that was in place by the sixteenth century is the division of the universe into two parallel realms of the living and the dead, known as mpemba. The threshold between the two is conceived of as a body of water.21 Power within this system is fi nite and allocated through mystical transactions. Existence has been described as a cyclical journey that critical to his professional practice. It is likely that it and other works in the corpus were integral to treatments relating to childbearing and infertility.19 On another level, the imagery suggests that such representations may have been conceived to confl ate the imperative of childbearing with the strategies of local leadership to augment their dependents through political alliances and the assimilation of slaves. While we lack the necessary contextual information relating to their patronage and usage to reconstruct the full signifi cance of these complex multifaceted representations, the larger-thanlife generatrix and her offspring may be understood as a manifesto to the Kongo idea of “wealth in people.” The Masters of Kasadi and Boma Vonde Two of the most talented Kongo artists from the Yombe subgroup are known to us entirely through works they produced that are now preserved in European and American collections.20 The respective interpretations by these contemporaries presented with parallel commissions are highly distinct from one another. Each of these sculptors has been identifi ed according to one of the locales in which his work was originally associated. In 1937 the Protestant missionary Léo Bittremieux acquired a mask and mother-and-child fi gure by one of these sculptors in the village of Kasadi from a diviner priest, known as a nganga diphomba, who had used them in his practice (fi gs. 33, 34). The Master of Kasadi’s formal style is evident in a diverse array of sculptural genres that range from the fi gurative programs for bed panels positioned in women’s initiation houses, to masks and minkisi deployed as diagnostic instruments by priests, to staffs of leadership, and to mother-and-child fi gures (fi gs. 21, 29, 32–34). Given the extent of this master sculptor’s activity, it is likely that he was assisted by a workshop. His carving style is defi ned by the naturalistic proportions of his subjects’ physiognomies that are nonetheless FIG. 30 (above): Ancestral shrine fi gure of a kneeling female with vessel and seated fi gure. Kongo peoples; Yombe group, Democratic Republic of the Congo or Republic of the Congo. 19th–early 20th century. Wood, glass, black paint, kaolin. H: 55.5 cm. Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven; Charles B. Benenson, B.A. 1933, Collection (2006.51.61).
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