The Metropolitan Museum of art, New York - new acquisitions

African Arts, Summer, 2001 by Alisa LaGamma

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Saint Anthony pectoral (Toni Malau)
Kongo peoples, Angola/Democratic Republic of the Congo
18th century
Brass; 10.2cm (4")
Gift of Ernst Anspach, 1999 (1999.295.1)

In 1704 a Kongo visionary called Dona Beatrice, or Kimpa Vita, launched a movement known as Antonianism that called for reforming the local church as a means of fortifying the Kongo state. Dona Beatrice advocated a more thorough Africanization of the church and claimed that through direct contact with heaven she observed the Holy Family to be Kongo. Ultimately found guilty of heresy by both the local nobility and the Church, Dona Beatrice was burned at the stake.

The primary emblem of this movement was Saint Anthony of Padua, a Portuguese-born saint associated with the protection of children and mothers and conceived as the source of Kongo salvation. Depictions of him in ivory, brass, or wood, known as Toni Malau, or Anthony of Good Fortune, became popular in Kongo during the seventeenth century as personal guardians that helped to protect their owners from ill health and other problems.

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Processional cross
Amharic, Ethiopia, Tigray region
16th century
Wood, tin; finial 45.7cm (18")
Rogers Fund, 1999 (1999.103)

This cross was created in the province of Tigray, near the Red Sea, the birthplace of Ethiopia's earliest kingdom and of Christianity in Africa. Works in wood are especially rare within the relatively small corpus of Ethiopian Christian art that predates the seventeenth century. Most processional crosses of that vintage are cast in bronze or silver.

Underlying this exceptional object's aesthetic is a technically accomplished fusion of wood sculpture and metalwork inspired by Byzantine and Islamic design. The highly unusual interplay of materials affords rich tonal contrasts and skillfully integrates the solidity of the carved wooden structure with the intricacy of the inscribed inlays.

In the Ethiopian church the wooden cross is perceived as having been sanctified by Christ's blood, which conferred upon it infinite power to heal and' to bless. Foliate and organic interlace designs, as seen here, visually reinforce this idea of the cross as a life-giving force. Commissioned by Ethiopian royalty, such works were presented to important monasteries to be carried in liturgical processions.

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Mukudj dance mask
Punu peoples, Gabon
19th century
Wood, pigment, kaolin; 32cm (12.6")
Purchase, Louis V. Bell Fund and The Fred and Rita Richman Foundation
and James Ross Gifts, 2000 (2000.177)

Masks such as this were worn in a stilt dance called mukudj. Its virtuosic male performers towered impressively on stilts while executing complex choreography and astonishing feats of acrobatics.

The creator of a mukudj mask would attempt to capture the likeness of the most beautiful woman in his community, The subject of this particular idealized and stylized portrait was embellished in classic nineteenth-century fashion with a coiffure composed of a central lobe and two lateral tresses and with cicatrization motifs on the forehead and temples. Kaolin taken from riverbeds, which was associated with healing and with a spiritual, ancestral realm of existence, was applied to the surface of the face. By using this material the artist both celebrated the beauty of a mortal woman and transformed her into a transcendent being.