{
"data": {
"id": 112818,
"accession_number": "1931.426",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Mother-and-Child Figure, late 1800s\u2013early 1900s. Africa, Central Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Pende-style maker. Wood, glass beads, upholstery studs, natural fiber, and pigment; overall: 53.4 x 13.1 x 14.6 cm (21 x 5 3/16 x 5 3/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of the African Art Sponsors of Karamu House, 1931.426",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Mother-and-Child Figure",
"creation_date": "late 1800s\u2013early 1900s",
"creation_date_earliest": 1880,
"creation_date_latest": 1920,
"artists_tags": [],
"culture": [
"Africa, Central Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Pende-style maker"
],
"technique": "Wood, glass beads, upholstery studs, natural fiber, and pigment",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "African Art",
"collection": "African Art",
"type": "Sculpture",
"measurements": "Overall: 53.4 x 13.1 x 14.6 cm (21 x 5 3/16 x 5 3/4 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"overall": {
"height": 0.534,
"width": 0.131,
"depth": 0.146
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 518209,
"title": "African Art",
"description": "African Art. Karamu House, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 1-May 30, 1960).",
"opening_date": "1960-03-01T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 184501,
"title": "Object in Focus: Mother and Child Figure, 19th-early 20th century; Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mbala people (wood, beads; 1931.426)",
"description": "Object in Focus: Mother and Child Figure, 19th-early 20th century; Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mbala people (wood, beads; 1931.426). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 17-November 24, 2002).",
"opening_date": "2002-09-17T00:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "Cleveland, Ohio: Karamu House, March 1 - May 30, 1960: \"African Art.\"",
"opening_date": "1960-03-01T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "Cleveland, Ohio: The Cleveland Museum of Art; September 17- November 24, 2002. \" Object in Focus: Mother and Child Figure, 19th-early 20th century; 1931.426.\"",
"opening_date": "2002-09-17T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Edgar Gustave \"Guillaume\" de Hondt, Brussels (?\u20131952)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [
"Name previously misspelled in records as Guillaume de Hondat
",
"\"Purchased by African Art Sponsors Fund, 11/25/31, from Guillaume de Hondat.\" Index card dated 9/2/31, CMA Curatorial File.
"
],
"date": "?\u20131931",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "The African Art Sponsors of Karamu House",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1931",
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art by gift",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1931\u2014",
"sortorder": 3
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "Eastern Pende carvers also once made larger mother-and-child sculptures to adorn the tops of chiefs' ritual houses.",
"description": "Wearing an elaborate lobed headdress and a beaded waistbelt, and having filed teeth and red-powdered skin, this maternity figure seems to have once carried an ax and a cup, wooden imitations of the two most important chiefly attributes. Perhaps together with a male counterpart, it was secretly kept inside the ritual house, serving as a guardian of the chief\u2019s treasure. Its style places it in the westernmost corner of Pendeland, between the Lutshima and Kwilu rivers.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q80005243"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1931.426-mother-and-child-fig"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Wixom, William D. \"African Art in the Cleveland Museum of Art.\" African Arts 10, no. 3 (1977): 16-25, 88, pp. 16-24, repr., fig. 10 (center).",
"page_number": "",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "\"Three Pieces of Negro Sculpture.\" The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 19, no. 3 (March 1932): 38-39.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 38-39",
"url": "https://www.jstor.org/stable/25137461"
},
{
"citation": "Petridis, Constantine. \u201cMbala, Tsaam, or Kwilu Pende? A Mother-and-Child Figure from the Kwango-Kwilu Region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.\u201d Cleveland Studies in the History of Art 7 (2002): 126\u2013141.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 126-127, fig. 1",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/20079722"
},
{
"citation": "Petridis, Constantijn. South of the Sahara: selected works of African art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2003.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: cat. 37, p. 104 - 105",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Cole, Herbert M. Maternity: Mothers and Children in the Arts of Africa.
Brussels : Mercatorfonds, 2017",
"page_number": "Reproduced and mentioned: pp. 150-151, fig. 126",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Petridis, Constantine. \"A World of Great Art for Everyone.\" In Representing Africa in American Art Museums: A Century of Collecting and Display. Kathleen Bickford Berzock and Christa Clarke, 104-121. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2011.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 111.",
"url": null
}
],
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"updated_at": "2026-03-27 00:01:06.562000"
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