This intricately decorated bronze vessel was sold to us as being from the Lester Wunderman collection, and attributed to the Dogon people of Mali. Whilst we have no doubt that it does have the Wunderman provenance, we suspect that the lid, although it fits, may not have been originally paired with the vessel. The vessel does seem to be Dogon in origin, but the lid, we believe, is from the Yoruba people of Nigeria.
Most of Lester Wunderman's collection is now part of the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum in New York City.
One of the finest and most complete assemblages of Dogon sculpture in private hands went on public exhibition when “AFRICAN ART OF THE DOGON: The Lester Wunderman Collection” opened at The Brooklyn Museum on April 4, 1973. In the forward to the museum catalog, Wunderman wrote: “Dogon art can hardly be called primitive. It contributes to expanding and enriching the life of those for whom it is carved; it is an integral part of Dogon society. Nor is that society as I saw it, necessarily primitive either...It is simply another course, an alternative method of human organization. To me, it seemed more loving, more peaceful and more at ease with its environment, its institutions and its neighbors than ours...”
This exhibit travelled to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Kansas City, Missouri; The Toledo Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan; The Dayton Art Institute; New Orleans Museum of Art; Dallas Museum of Fine Arts; and the Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, New York, accompanied by the fully illustrated catalogue - African Art of the Dogon: The Myths of the Cliff Dwellers by Jean Laude.
Height: 7 ¾" x 4" diameter.
