Grave object
date: label: Date
content: ca. 1800
name: label: Maker
content: Kongo artist
notes: label: Label Text
content: Kongo women handbuilt the majority of domestic pottery, but male Kongo potters fashioned pipes and bowls for calabash water pipes and vessels with animal and human figures that they sold to outside markets. On occasion, men were observed creating water and cooking vessels for local use.
label: Label Text
content: More significantly, men produced important ritual pottery, including Kongo grave objects, the tall, hollow, open-based cylindrical terracotta forms known as mabondo. Although 17th-century Europeans described terracottas on Kongo graves that may be linked to mabondo, more recent scholarship suggests that the form originated in the 19th century. Wealthy Kongo commissioned mabondo to commemorate the dead. They were often highly decorated with figures or incised and impressed motifs. The diamond motifs with bosses at the corners of this vessel probably represent the journey the Kongo believe humans must take when they die, traveling between the land of the living and the land of the dead. Production ceased in the 1930s.
label: Label Text
content: Kongo men and women employed similar methods to create their vessels, but the men had exclusive use of some implements. For example, male potters sometimes handbuilt their vessels on turntables made of wood or clay. The turntable was attached to a wood plank which was fixed to the ground with a long spike or a small piece of wood, a stone or a clay pivot. Assistants turned the devices with their hands or if the edges of the turntable were serrated, the potters manipulated them with their feet. They then fired their vessels in the open.
label: Description
content: Columnar shaped object divided into four horizontal registers and opened at both ends. The top and third registers are decorated with interlace patterns. The third register is decorated with a diamond pattern and the bottom register is undecorated. Four handles are at the top.
label: Provenance
content: Walshaert collection, Antwerp, before 1930
label: Provenance
content: Marc Leo Felix, Brussels, late 1980s
label: Exhibition History
content: Earth Matters: Land as Material and Metaphor in the Arts of Africa, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., April 22, 2013-February 23, 2014; Fowler Museum at UCLA, University of California, Los Angeles, April 19-September 14, 2014; Bowdoin College Museum of Art, October 15, 2015-March 9, 2016
label: Exhibition History
content: Ceramics at the National Museum of African Art 3rd level Pots, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., January 8, 1998 to the present
label: Exhibition History
content: Astonishment and Power: Kongo Minkisi and the Art of Renee Stout, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., April 28, 1993-January 15, 1994
label: Published References
content: MacGaffey in MacGaffey, Wyatt and Michael Harris. 1993. Astonishment and Power. Washington D.C.: National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, p. 61, no. 42.
label: Published References
content: Milbourne, Karen E. 2013. Earth Matters: Land as Material and Metaphor in the Arts of Africa. New York: The Monacelli Press; Washington, D.C.: National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, pp. 96-97, no. 74.
label: Published References
content: National Museum of African Art. 1999. Selected Works from the Collection of the National Museum of African Art. Washington, D.C.: National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, p. 120, no. 81.
label: Content Statement
content: As part of our commitment to accessibility and transparency, the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art is placing its collection records online. Please note that some records are incomplete (missing image or content descriptions) and others reflect out-of-date language or systems of thought regarding how to engage with and discuss cultural heritage and the specifics of individual artworks. If you see content requiring immediate action, we will do our best to address it in a timely manner. Please email nmafacuratorial@si.edu if you have any questions.
label: Image Requests
content: High resolution digital images are not available for some objects. For publication quality photography and permissions, please contact the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives at https://africa.si.edu/research/eliot-elisofon-photographic-archives/
place: label: Geography
content: Democratic Republic of the Congo
title: label: Object Name
content: <I>dibondo</I>
topic: label: Topic
content: Funerary
label: Topic
content: male
setName: label: See more items in
content: National Museum of African Art Collection
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Purchased with funds provided by the Smithsonian Collections Acquisition Program
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of African Art
identifier: label: Object number
content: 89-13-7
objectType: label: Type
content: Sculpture
objectRights: label: Restrictions & Rights
content: CC0
physicalDescription: label: Medium
content: Ceramic
label: Dimensions
content: H x W x D: 45 x 28.5 x 28.5 cm (17 11/16 x 11 1/4 x 11 1/4 in.)