ClassificationsAfrican Art

Beaded Bowl Figure

Place CreatedLaikom, Cameroon, Africa

CultureKom, Tikar

Datelate 19th-early 20th Century

MediumWood, fiber, beads, metal

Credit LineGift of William S. Arnett

Dimensions27 13/16 x 13 7/8 x 12 in. (70.6 x 35.3 x 30.5 cm)

Object number1994.003.003

Label TextThis figure belongs to a group of bead-covered figures representing the Kom royal family and their servants. The ensemble was probably carved during the latter part of the reign of Foyn Yu who ruled from ca. 1865 to 1912. The Michael C. Carlos Museum's bowl figure was collected in the late 1950s by Gilbert Schneider, a member of the American Baptist Missionary Society. Schneider received it from Foyn Law-aw as partial payment after he procured a new tin roof for the palace. Schneider also collected two other bowl figures. They are in the collections of the Seattle Art Museum and the Indiana University Art Museum.

The bowl figure represents a chisendo, an elite attendant in the service of the king, or fon. It is both a functional object and a symbol of kingly status. During court ceremonies, bowl figures were placed beside the fon and filled with kola nuts or flasks of palm wine, two essential ingredients offered to royal guests as gestures of hospitality. The bowl figure also represents concepts of support and status. For example, it embodies a supportive role because it holds and offers a vessel. Although represented seated (an indication of authority), the figure's legs are rendered as structural elements of the stool, reaffirming the concept of support for the king. Befitting a high-ranking court official is the face, a study of calm composure, and accoutrements of prestige, the multilobed cap and white beads representing ivory bracelets and anklets.

The beads covering this sculpture were manufactured in Europe, either Venice or Bohemia, and imported into the Grassfields region of Cameroon. A linen-like fabric was stretched taut over the figure; beads were then strung on thread and sewn in rows onto the cloth.
Exhibition HistoryCameroon Art: Selections from the Collection of William Arnett, The Art Gallery, Kennesaw State College, Kennesaw, Georgia, January 30 - March 22, 1989
MCCM Permanent Collection Installation, May 11, 1993 - July 1994
MCCM Permanent Collection Installation, Rotation 1, December 15, 1995 - February 1997
MCCM Permanent Collection Installation, Rotation 2, February 1997 - July 1998
MCCM Permanent Collection Installation, Rotation 3, September 26, 1998 - Spring 2003
MCCM Permanent Collection Installation, July 19, 2003 - March 13, 2007
MCCM Permanent Collection Installation, November 19, 2007 - December 1, 2014
MCCM Permanent Collection Installation, August 6, 2016 - January 12, 2022
MCCM Permanent Collection Installation, May 17, 2022 - Present
Published ReferencesTamara Northern, Royal Art of Cameroon: The Art of the Bamenda-Tikar (Hanover: Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, 1973), 23, figure 11.
Fred Ferretti, Afo-a-Kom: Sacred Art of Cameroon (New York: The Third Press, 1975), 59-61.
Pierre Harter, Arts anciens du Cameroun (Arnouville: Arts d'Afrique noire, 1986), 79, 209-12.
Cameroon Art: Selections from the Collection of William Arnett (Kennesaw: Kennesaw State College, 1989), back cover.
Warren M. Robbins and Nancy Ingram Nooter, African Art in American Collections: Survey 1989 (Washington DC: Smithsonian University Press, 1989), 318.
Michael C. Carlos Museum Handbook (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 1996), 100.
MCCM Newsletter, December 2007 - February 2008.
Michael C. Carlos Museum: Highlights of the Collections (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 2011), 105.

ProvenanceEx coll. Gilbert Schneider (1920-1999) [American Baptist Mission], received as a gift from Kom king Fon Law-aw, Cameroon, 1958 - 1966. Ex private collection, Athens, Georgia, by 1975. Ex coll. William Arnett (1939-2020), Atlanta, Georgia, by 1989.

Status

On view

Collections