H x W x D: 25.4 x 21 x 21 cm (10 x 8 1/4 x 8 1/4 in.)
Type:
Ceramics
Geography:
Ghana
Date:
Early-mid 20th century
Label Text:
Among the Asante, hand-formed vessels called abusua kuruwa, meaning "family pot" or "clan pot," are kept in shrines and special rooms, where the royal ancestral stools are preserved, as well as in community cemeteries. The vessels contained the nail and hair clippings of close relatives of the deceased, water or other offerings.
A prestigious version of an abusua kuruwa is an abebudie, or proverb pot, which is elaborately decorated with representational motifs. An example of the type shown here has a long neck and multilobed stopper. Motifs modeled on the vessel visualize proverbs relating to death. The snake encircling the neck, for example, refers to the saying "the rainbow of death [a python] encircles everyman's neck," that is, death is inevitable. A similar proverb is conveyed by the ladder: "the ladder of death, no single person climbs it." Other motifs include an oware gameboard and an axe the deceased can use on the forty day journey to the afterlife. A cacao pod and an imported pocket watch may indicate the deceased was a successful farmer.
Description:
Unglazed low fire ceramic vessel in a bottle-like form with a multi-lobed stopper. The horizontal surface of the body of the vessel is embellished with incised geometric motifs, and figurative relief designs: a snake coiled around the base of the neck faces a frog, a ladder, a gameboard, an axe, a mudfish, a cacao pod and a pocketwatch. There is a high relief, dotted object, that is chipped and may represent a scorpion or a bird or perhaps some other animal. Both the neck and the lower part of the vessel are covered with diagonal incised patterns.
Provenance:
Emil J. Arnold, New York, -- to 1969
Exhibition History:
From the Earth: African Ceramic Art, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., May 17-October 9, 1983
Life...Afterlife: African Funerary Sculpture, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., November 19, 1981-March 1, 1982
Published References:
Blier, Suzanne Preston. 1998. The Royal Arts of Africa: The Majesty of Form. London: Lawrence King, p. 156, no. 129.
Cole, Herbert and Doran Ross. 1978. The Arts of Ghana. Los Angeles: Museum of Cultural History, University of California, no. 256.
Goodman, Elaine Sooy. 2009. "Warren M. Robbins and the Founding of the National Museum of African Art." Tribal Art XIII:2 (51), p. 94, no. 17.
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. 51, no. 30.
Robbins, Warren M. and Nancy Iingram Nooter. 1989. African Art in American Collections. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, p. 563, no. 1548.
Stössel, Arnulf. Afrikanische Keramik. Munich: Hirmer Verlag, p. 107.
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