Maternity Association Figure
- L9
Die Kunst von Schwarz Afrika, Kunsthaus Zürich, October 31, 1970-January 17, 1971, no. U19.
A Bountiful Decade: Selected Acquisitions, 1977-1987, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, October 14-December 6, 1987, no. 10.
Acquired by Dr. Jules-Auguste “Tiarko” Fourche (1889-1942) in the village of Bumba, no. 150, by June 19, 1936-1942 [1];
By inheritance to his wife, Mme. Fourche, Brussels, Belgium, 1942-September 18, 1946;
Purchased from Mme. Fourche by the Musée Royal de l'Afrique Centrale, Tervuren, Belgium, no. EO.0.0.43849, September 18, 1946-January 12, 1972 [2];
By exchange from the MRAC to the dealer Emile Deletaille (1929-2021), Brussels, Belgium, January 12, 1972 [3];
With Baron Frédéric Rolin (1919-2001), 1972 [4];
Purchased from Rolin by Comte Jean-Jacques de Launoit (b. 1937), Brussels, Belgium, 1972-August 1981 [5];
With L & R Entwistle & Co., Ltd, London, August 1981-July 1984;
Purchased from L & R Entwistle & Co., Ltd by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1984.
NOTES:
[1] As described in a letter from Huguette Van Geluwe, Head of the Section of Ethnography, Musée royal de l’Afrique Centrale, to David Binkley, Assistant Curator, December 6, 1985, Nelson-Atkins curatorial files: “This very piece was collected in the village Bumba, a Bakwa Ndolo (subgroup of the Luluwa) settlement, in the former “territoire” of Dibaya (Kasaï) by Tiarko Fourche, M.D. who started his colonial career in the Congo in 1923. In 1933 he was appointed in Kasaï. He died in 1942.” According to Costa Petridis, “Of Mothers and Sorcerers,” The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 23, no. 2, African Art (1997), 188, Fourche collected between 1933 and 1936.
[2] Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, Direction, Acquisition registers, AA.1-RGE.14, Register (nrs.4577 – 6338). With thanks to Annick Swinnen and Eline Van Heymbeeck, Royal Museum for Central Africa, for providing information about this figure from the Tervuren records.
[3] Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, Ethnography Section, Acquisition files, DA.3.308 (Échange). This figure, as well as EO.0.0.6685, were exchanged with Emile Deletaille by the Royal Museum for Central Africa for EO.1972.1.1.
[4] According to an unsigned, handwritten note attributed to the dealer Louis de Strycker, Nelson-Atkins curatorial files, Rolin was involved in the exchange of this figure between the MRAC and Deletaille. MRAC’s records of the exchange (see note 3), however, contain no reference to Rolin. The figure is illustrated in Kevin Conru, Bernard de Grunne and Shaouli Sharkar, Collection Freddy Rolin (Brussels: Conru Editions, 2021), 116, but no details of Rolin’s ownership are included. According to Sharkar, in an email to MacKenzie Mallon, Specialist, Provenance, November 18, 2023, Nelson-Atkins curatorial files, Rolin’s grandson currently holds Rolin’s archive, but is unable to find any information about this figure.
[5] According to L & R Entwistle & Co., Ltd., in documentation provided at the time of the object’s purchase, Nelson-Atkins curatorial files, and Louis de Strycker note (see note 4).
Eliot Elisofon and William Fagg, The Sculpture of Africa (1958; repr. New York: Hacker Books, 1978), 216-17, 256, (repro.).
Art of the Congo, exh. cat. (Minneapolis, MN: Walker Art Center, 1967), 41, 67, (repro.).
Die Kunst von Schwarz Afrika, exh. cat. (Recklinghausen: Verlag Aurel Bongers, 1970), 295-96, (repro.)
Joseph Cornet, Art de l’Afrique noire au pays du fleuve Zaïre (Brussels: Editions Arcade, 1971), 148-49, 357, (repro.).
Elsy Leuzinger, The Art of Black Africa, trans. R. A. Wilson (Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society Ltd., 1972, 310-311, (repro.).
Joseph Cornet, Art of Africa: Treasures from the Congo, trans. Barbara Thompson (Brussels and London, Phaidon Press Ltd., 1977), 148-149, 357, (repro.).
Advertisement, Arts d’Afrique Noire, no. 51 (1984): 3, (repro.).
Calendar of Events (The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, December 1984), cover, p. 2, (repro.).
Roger Ward, ed., A Bountiful Decade: Selected Acquisitions, 1977-1987, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1987), 36-37, (repro.).
Ellen R. Goheen, The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1988), 232, (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), 85, (repro.).
Costa Petridis, “Of Mothers and Sorcerers,” The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 23, no. 2, African Art (1997), 188, (repro.).
Joyce M. Youmans, “African Art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art,” African Arts 33, no. 4 (Winter 2000), 46-48, (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), 247, (repro.).
