Male Shrine Figure

CultureUrhobo peoples

Dateearly 20th century

MediumWood and pigment

DimensionsOverall: 49 inches (124.46 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust through the George H. and Elizabeth O. Davis Fund

Object number86-7

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

African Art

Terms

DescriptionCarved wooden image of a seated male. Arms slightly flexed to the side. Proper right hand holds cup. left hand missing. concave back. ornamentation worn on massive thrusting chest including two beaded necklaces, a gourd container suspended on cord and a single large bead pendant suspended on a cord. eyes set above a firmly set jaw, the mouth is open with teeth indicated. A short postlike form rises above the head. lines are represented on the forehead. Dominant overall red pigment on surface with white pigmExhibition History

Exhibition History

A Bountiful Decade: Selected Acquisitions, 1977–1987, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, October 14–December 6, 1987, no. 11.

Gallery Label

This shrine figure depicts a nature spirit (edjo) in the form of a mythic, victorious warrior and community founder. The warrior's swelling chest and forehead, forceful gaze, jutting jaw and bared teeth express male aggression and the region's warrior ethos. The medicine-filled gourd held in his hand ensures military success, while facial scarification, massive ivory cuffs and beads about his neck and shoulders signify titled authority. Originally wearing a white wrapper, this founding warrior and his family formed a tableaux of edjo shrine figures encrusted with white chalk denoting spiritual purity and the luminous ancestral realm.

Provenance

With Wright Gallery, New York, 1983;

With L & R Entwistle Co, Ltd., London, by February 1986;

Purchased from L & R Entwistle by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1986.

Published References

Advertisement, African Arts 16, no. 4 (August 1983), 7, (repro.).

Newsletter (The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Summer 1986), cover, 2, (repro.).

Roger Ward, ed., A Bountiful Decade: Selected Acquisitions, 1977-1987, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1987), 38-9, (repro.).

Rediscovered Masterpieces of African Art (Boulogne: Art 135), 214, 304-5, (repro.).

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 86, (repro.).

Joyce M. Youmans, “African Art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art,” African Arts 33, no. 4 (Winter 2000), 46-8, (repro.).

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 249, (repro.).

Julian Zugazagoitia and Laura Spencer. Director's Highlights: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Celebrating 90 Years, ed. Kaitlyn Bunch (The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024), 118, (repro.).

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