Digital Collections | AMNH - Knife with figure handle, Mangbetu people of Africa

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Tags

American Museum Congo Expedition (1909-1915)

Asset ID ptc-3890

Title Knife with figure handle, Mangbetu people of Africa

Description Iron, wood. This dagger represents the earliest style of anthropomorphic carving found among the Mangbetu. The carving illustrates the fashionable Mangebetu style at the turn of the century, including the elongated head and the back apron, or negbe, worn by women. Similar daggers, carried in a sheath and worn tucked under a man's belt, were made throughout northeastern Zaire. Their wooden or ivory handles were often carved in simple geometric forms, but around 1900, carvers increasingly embellished everyday objects (including knives, boxes and other containers, and musical instruments) with human figures. This fine example shows a typical Mangbetu pose, one arm in front and the other in back resting on the apron. Herbert Lang collected it from Chief Zebuandra in 1910, during the American Museum of Natural History Congo Expedition. Material: Wood, Metal (Iron).

Agent (Role) Gardiner, Lynton (Photographer), Lang, Herbert, 1879-1957 (Collector)

Date 1915 (collected), 1990 (photographed)

Artwork/Object Type Knives

Physical dimensions L:30 W:5 H:5 (in CM)

City Town Medje

State Province Upper Uele

Country Democratic Republic of the Congo

Is Part Of African reflections : art from northeastern Zaire, Division of Anthropology, African Ethnographic Collection

Collection/Work Relation AMNH Special Collections, Photographic Transparency Collection, 4 x 5: 3890

Department Catalog Number(s) 90.1/2082

Rights statement Information on rights available at the repository.

Repository American Museum of Natural History

Publication History Schildkrout, Enid, Curtis A Keim, Curtis A Keim, American Museum of Natural History, and American Museum of Natural History. 1990. African Reflections : Art from Northeastern Zaire. Seattle: University of Washington Press, p. 2.

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