Varia

A dozen Djenne Terracottas


Djenne terracotta • Private Collection
Djenne terracotta • Private Collection

"Figurative and animal sculpture in terra cotta was produced by people inhabiting the Inland Niger Delta between the 11th and the 17th centuries, a period marked by the successive trans-Saharan trading empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai in West Africa.

 

"Because the majority of these works emerged via market forces during the 1970s and '80s, as opposed to via archaeological excavation, little is known about their original context, their functions, or the populations who produced them. Scholars have little sense of the scope of the corpus or its regional distribution and are at a loss to understand chronological relationships between sculptures."

 

Kristina Van Dyke

Extract from: Ancestors of Congo Square

© 2011 New Orleans Museum of Art

 


Djenne terracotta #01 • Private Collection, Brussels • Reproduced in The World of Tribal Arts (1999, v.3), p. 78
Yale # 0039327


Djenne terracotta #02 • The Menil Collection, Houston, TX • Access # 81-56 DJ • Reproduced in African Art from the Menil Collection edited by Kristina Van Dyke (The Menil Collection, 2008), p. 66
Yale # 0110785


Djenne terracotta #03 • New Orleans Museum of Art • Gift of the Robert and Helen Kuhn Families • Access # 97.138 • Reproduced in • Ancestors of Congo Square, African Art in the New Orleans Museum of Art edited by William Fagaly (Scala, 2011), p. 25
Yale # 0017347


Djenne terracotta #04 • Collection Marc Blanpain • Reproduced in Rêves de Beauté - Sculptures africaines de la collection Blanpain edited by Bernard de Grunne (5 Continents Editions, 2005), p. 66
Yale # 0103949


Djenne terracotta #05 • Collection Drs. Daniel and Marian Malcolm • Reproduced in Echoing Images - Couples in African Sculpture (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004), p. 12
Yale # 0051443


Djenne terracotta #06 • Collection Marc Blanpain • Reproduced in Rêves de Beauté - Sculptures africaines de la collection Blanpain edited by Bernard de Grunne (5 Continents Editions, 2005), p. 61

Yale # 0103943


Djenne terracotta #07 • Private Collection, New York • Reproduced in Africa: The Art of a Continent edited by Tom Phillips (Prestel Verlag, 1999), p. 491
Yale # 0068123


Djenne terracotta #08 • Private Collection • Reproduced in Earth and Ore - 2500 Years of African Art in Terra-cotta and Metal edited by Karl-Ferdinand Schaedler (Panterra Verlag, 1997), p. 56
Yale # 0019314


Djenne terracotta #09 • Barbier-Mueller Museum, Geneva • Access # 1004-78 • Reproduced in African Terra Cottas, A Millenary Heritage edited by Floriane Morin & Boris Wastiau (Musée Barbier-Mueller & Somogy Editions d’Art, 2008), p. 87
Yale # 0017337


Djenne terracotta #10 • The Menil Collection, Houston, TX • Reproduced in African Art from the Menil Collection edited by Kristina Van Dyke (The Menil Collection, 2008), p. 69
Yale # 0110787


Djenne terracotta #11 • Private Collection • Reproduced in Africa: The Art of a Continent edited by Tom Phillips (Prestel Verlag, 1999), p. 494
Yale # 0001834


Djenne terracotta #12 • Private Collection • Reproduced in Tribal Art Magazine (2009, n°52), p.21
Yale # 0128813


More examples available here.