To complete an ensemble and demonstrate an extreme display of sañse, jewelry is often made in matching sets to compliment a particular boubou, a long flowing garment with a neck opening made from a single piece of fabric. Its greatest majesty is seen in a grand boubou, the most voluminous style, balanced delicately on the shoulder with dignity and grace, and accented with massive, eye-catching gold jewelry.
Description:
Gold-plated silver alloy necklace with central cylindrical pendant surrounded by eleven smaller cylindrical pendants and 14 handmade spherical beads of wrapped, twisted wire. The pendant is pierced by elongated almond shapes in the "X" shapes and surrounded by twisted wire. Parallel lines of twisted wire decorate its circumference and the cylinder is heavily granulated. The smaller cylinders are similarly decorated granulation, but the central design is two sets of parallel lines of twisted wire around the circumference, with circles of twisted wire at the rounded ends of the cylinders. Hook-and-eye closure.
Provenance:
Marian Johnson, purchased in Dakar, Senegal, 1963-late 20th century to 2012
Exhibition History:
Good As Gold: Fashioning Senegalese Women, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., October 24, 2018-February 2, 2020; North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, September 16, 2020-January 3, 2021
African Mosaic: Selections from the Permanent Collection, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., November 19, 201–August 12, 2019 (installed June 12, 2015-August 1, 2017)
Published References:
Maples, Amanda, Ashby Johnson, Marian, and Dumouchelle, Kevin D., 2018, Good As Gold, Washington, D.C.: NMAfA, Smithsonian, p. 30, 87, illustrated p. 31
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