IDNO

P.73892.GIJ

Description

A wooden figure of a mother and child. The figure is seated on a round stool and nursing a child. The figure has a crested headdress, oval shaped white face with black scarification marks on the sides, a ringed neck, rectangular body, sagging breasts, hands outstretched, and bent knees. The figure is painted. In the background is a building with a raffia roof.

Place

W Africa; Nigeria; Eastern Nigeria

Cultural Affliation

Igbo [historically Ibo]; Ezza

Named Person

Photographer

Jones, Gwilliam Iwan (known as G.I.)

Collector / Expedition

Date

circa 1930 - 1939

Collection Name

Jones collection

Source

Jones, Gwilliam Iwan (known as G.I.)

Format

Print Black & White

Primary Documentation

Other Information

P.73891.GIJ to P.74008.GIJ were kept in box 12, now numbered C339/.

Publication: Same image in Jones, 1988, p. 66, Figure 59 with the caption, “Figure of mother and child, Ezza tribe, North-eastern Ibo.”

Context: In discussing the sculpture of the North-eastern Ibo Jones writes, “In contrast to the Cross River Ibo, the North-eastern Ibo were in general much less involved in masquerading and sculpture. Most of their craftsmen came from the Ezza tribe, who were the local blacksmiths and had carvers who made bowls, platters, dishes and slit drums (gongs), some of them of considerable refinement. The Ezza and the Izi also carved dolls and other figures. Few masquerades were being performed in this region in the 1930s and the Northe-eastern Ibo seem to have developed no recognisable style of their own, apart from a highly conventionalised head mask called Obodo Enyi; the masquerade in which it performed has been described for the Yako and other Middle Cross River peoples.” (Jones, 1988, p.66)

Bibliographical Reference:
Jones, G.I. 1988. Ibo Art. (Shire)

This catalogue record has been updated with the support of the Getty Grant Program Two. [Alicia Fentiman 4/3/2008]