ClassificationsAfrican Art

Bottle with Yoke

Place CreatedCameroon, Africa

Datelate 19th-early 20th Century

MediumWood

Credit LineEx coll. William S. Arnett

Dimensions19 x 19 5/8 x 10 in. (48.3 x 49.8 x 25.4 cm)

Object number1994.004.774 A/B

Label TextWhat makes this particular object difficult to classify is the wooden bottle-shape. Though there are many examples of calabash bottles, this is a carved wooden bottle woth a hole in the bottle that has been plugged and a carved hole on the side. The base is surrounded by four figures. These figures correspond stylistically to an anthropomorphic male figure in the Valerie Franklin collection identified as Southern Forest, possibly Mbo, but equaly fitting within the category of Keaka figures, an Esatern Ejagham group, but there appear to be no bottle-like carvings that come out of this area. The figures also resemble a mael figure from Cameroon, possibly Mbem from the Tishman Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and attributed to the Kaka.
Exhibition HistoryCameroon Art: Selections from the Collection of William Arnett, The Art Gallery, Kennesaw State College, Kennesaw, Georgia, January 30 - March 22, 1989
Published ReferencesMarcilene K. Wittmer, Cameroon: An Exhibition of African Art from the Collection of William & Robert Arnett (Atlanta: William S. Arnett, 1977), back cover.
Cameroon Art: Selections from the Collection of William Arnett (Kennesaw: The Art Gallery, Kennesaw State College, 1989), 20, number 56.

ProvenanceEx coll. William Arnett (1939-2020), Atlanta, Georgia, from at least 1977.

Status

Not on view

Collections