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Bark box containers were traditionally intended to hold the jewelry and hairpins of wealthy Mangbetu women. The royal court of the Mangbetu, founded in the eighteenth century, commanded significant wealth because of its control of regional trade. Members of the court commissioned refined artwork, including jewelry boxes and harps. This particular box, with its human face and legs, however, was more likely made for the European market than for a Mangbetu noblewoman. Jewelry boxes for the court often included geometric motifs, with bases that imitated the shape of a woman’s stool, but European colonial officials preferred anthropomorphic sculptures to abstract designs. By the later nineteenth century, artists increasingly made decorative arts in anthropomorphic forms for foreigners, capitalizing on the European market for African art and material culture in this period; Mangbetu kings at times commissioned this style of box as a diplomatic gift.
This box was once owned by the Umlauff family in Hamburg. Johann Friedrich Gustav Umlauff (1833–1889) was a ship’s carpenter who later bought a bathhouse on the Hamburg coast, selling foreign curios from his sailing connections on the side. He later married sister of Carl Hagenbeck, an entrepreneur who imported zoo animals from Africa and eventually branched out into organizing horrific “human zoos” as well. Through Hagenbeck’s international contacts, Umlauff founded a prosperous business dealing in art and ethnographic objects from Africa. This network of businesses all profited from a European interest in seeing the exotic “other,” and from a racist assumption that African rulers, citizens, and artists were less evolved that their European peers.
This piece would have been of particular interest to European buyers because of the head on the lid. Europeans were impressed by Mangbetu art and architecture, but also fascinated by noble mothers’ practice of tightly swaddling infants’ heads to create a high forehead, a permanent marker of social status. The elegant brow of this figure would have reminded its European owner of the graceful appearance of courtiers in the royal sphere. Postcards of Mangbetu courtiers and children were popular in the period for the same reason.
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Container (nembandi)
Mangbetu
1890s
Object Place: Mangbetu kingdom, Democratic Republic of the Congo
Medium/Technique
Wood, bark, vegetable fiber
Dimensions
39.37 cm (15 1/2 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of William E. and Bertha L. Teel
Accession Number1992.408
CollectionsAfrica and Oceania
ClassificationsBoxes
Bark box containers were traditionally intended to hold the jewelry and hairpins of wealthy Mangbetu women. The royal court of the Mangbetu, founded in the eighteenth century, commanded significant wealth because of its control of regional trade. Members of the court commissioned refined artwork, including jewelry boxes and harps. This particular box, with its human face and legs, however, was more likely made for the European market than for a Mangbetu noblewoman. Jewelry boxes for the court often included geometric motifs, with bases that imitated the shape of a woman’s stool, but European colonial officials preferred anthropomorphic sculptures to abstract designs. By the later nineteenth century, artists increasingly made decorative arts in anthropomorphic forms for foreigners, capitalizing on the European market for African art and material culture in this period; Mangbetu kings at times commissioned this style of box as a diplomatic gift.
This box was once owned by the Umlauff family in Hamburg. Johann Friedrich Gustav Umlauff (1833–1889) was a ship’s carpenter who later bought a bathhouse on the Hamburg coast, selling foreign curios from his sailing connections on the side. He later married sister of Carl Hagenbeck, an entrepreneur who imported zoo animals from Africa and eventually branched out into organizing horrific “human zoos” as well. Through Hagenbeck’s international contacts, Umlauff founded a prosperous business dealing in art and ethnographic objects from Africa. This network of businesses all profited from a European interest in seeing the exotic “other,” and from a racist assumption that African rulers, citizens, and artists were less evolved that their European peers.
This piece would have been of particular interest to European buyers because of the head on the lid. Europeans were impressed by Mangbetu art and architecture, but also fascinated by noble mothers’ practice of tightly swaddling infants’ heads to create a high forehead, a permanent marker of social status. The elegant brow of this figure would have reminded its European owner of the graceful appearance of courtiers in the royal sphere. Postcards of Mangbetu courtiers and children were popular in the period for the same reason.
Provenance1890s, acquired in Africa and became part of the collection of Firma J. F. G. Umlauff, Hamburg [see note 1]. Merton Simpson (dealer), New York. Thomas Alexander (dealer), St. Louis [see note 2]. June 10, 1988, sold by Maurice Bonnefoy (dealer), New York and Garennes-sur-Eure, France, to William and Bertha Teel, Marblehead, MA; 1992, partial gift of William and Bertha Teel to the MFA; 2014, acquired fully with the bequest of William Teel to the MFA. (Accession Dates: June 30, 1992 and February 26, 2014)
NOTES: [1] The left foot of the figure is inscribed "Sammlung Umlauff, Mangbetu." The Umlauff firm established an ethnographic art and artifact business and amassed an extensive collection. This container was probably made for the market; most boxes with a head and legs like this (rather than geometric motifs) were made for direct sale to Europeans beginning in the late 19th century. [2] Yale Van Rijn Archive of African Art, no. 0028271.
NOTES: [1] The left foot of the figure is inscribed "Sammlung Umlauff, Mangbetu." The Umlauff firm established an ethnographic art and artifact business and amassed an extensive collection. This container was probably made for the market; most boxes with a head and legs like this (rather than geometric motifs) were made for direct sale to Europeans beginning in the late 19th century. [2] Yale Van Rijn Archive of African Art, no. 0028271.