{
    "data": {
        "id": 136459,
        "accession_number": "1960.37",
        "share_license_status": "CC0",
        "tombstone": "Serpent Headdress, late 1800s\u2013early 1900s. Africa, West Africa, Guinea, possibly Baga-style maker. Wood (Nauclea pobeguinii) and paint; overall: 148 cm (58 1/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Norweb Collection, 1960.37",
        "current_location": "108A African",
        "title": "Serpent Headdress",
        "creation_date": "late 1800s\u2013early 1900s",
        "creation_date_earliest": 1875,
        "creation_date_latest": 1925,
        "artists_tags": [],
        "culture": [
            "Africa, West Africa, Guinea, possibly Baga-style maker"
        ],
        "technique": "Wood (Nauclea pobeguinii) and paint",
        "support_materials": [],
        "department": "African Art",
        "collection": "African Art",
        "type": "Mask",
        "measurements": "Overall: 148 cm (58 1/4 in.)",
        "dimensions": {
            "overall": {
                "height": 1.48,
                "height_inch": 58,
                "height_inch_fraction": 0.25
            }
        },
        "state_of_the_work": null,
        "edition_of_the_work": null,
        "copyright": null,
        "inscriptions": [],
        "exhibitions": {
            "current": [
                {
                    "id": 302015,
                    "title": "Year in Review - Nineteen Hundred Sixty",
                    "description": "<i>Year in Review - Nineteen Hundred Sixty</i>. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 30, 1960-January 1, 1961).",
                    "opening_date": "1960-11-30T05:00:00"
                },
                {
                    "id": 302281,
                    "title": "Landscape",
                    "description": "<i>Landscape</i>. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 9-April 22, 1962).",
                    "opening_date": "1962-01-09T05:00:00"
                },
                {
                    "id": 519209,
                    "title": "The Imagination of Primitive Man",
                    "description": "<i>The Imagination of Primitive Man</i>. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO (organizer) (January 18-February 25, 1962).",
                    "opening_date": "1962-01-18T05:00:00"
                },
                {
                    "id": 302145,
                    "title": "Traditions and Revisions: Themes from the History of Sculpture",
                    "description": "<i>Traditions and Revisions: Themes from the History of Sculpture</i>. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 24-November 16, 1975).",
                    "opening_date": "1975-09-24T04:00:00"
                },
                {
                    "id": 310042,
                    "title": "Images of the Mind",
                    "description": "<i>Images of the Mind</i>. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 7-August 30, 1987).",
                    "opening_date": "1987-07-07T04:00:00"
                }
            ],
            "legacy": [
                {
                    "description": "CMA 1960:  \"Year in Review,\" Bulletin XLVII (December 1960), p. 250, no. 13, repr. p. 234.",
                    "opening_date": "1960-12-01T00:00:00"
                },
                {
                    "description": "Kansas City, MO: The Imagination of Primitive Man, January 3-March 14, 1962, no. 18.",
                    "opening_date": "1962-01-03T00:00:00"
                },
                {
                    "description": "CMA 1975:  Traditions and Revisions, no. 117.",
                    "opening_date": "1975-01-01T00:00:00"
                },
                {
                    "description": "CMA 1987:  Images of the Mind, July 7-August 23, 1987, repr. p. 22,",
                    "opening_date": "1987-07-07T00:00:00"
                }
            ]
        },
        "provenance": [
            {
                "description": "Jacqueline (and Maurice?) Nicaud by purchase. Possibly village of Kanfrande [Kanfarand\u00e9], District of Boke, French Guinea.",
                "citations": [],
                "footnotes": [
                    "<ul><li><!--block-->Location reported in letter February 24, 1960 between Sherman E. Lee and Emery May Norweb, curatorial files.</li><li><!--block-->However, in a July 17, 1994 letter between Jacqueline Nicaud and Thomas Wheelock, Madame Nicaud says that she cannot remember where she purchased the \"bansonyi,\" even after reviewing her archives. She does note that she was buying them starting from 1954, \"in the presence of the chief and his administrators.\" Curatorial files.</li></ul>"
                ],
                "date": "ca.1954\u20131960",
                "sortorder": 1
            },
            {
                "description": "Mathias Komor, New York, NY",
                "citations": [],
                "footnotes": [
                    "<div><!--block-->Letter February 24, 1960 between Sherman E. Lee and Emery May Norweb, curatorial files.</div>"
                ],
                "date": "by 1960",
                "sortorder": 2
            },
            {
                "description": "Emery May Norweb (aka Mrs. R. Henry Norweb) by purchase",
                "citations": [],
                "footnotes": [
                    "<div><!--block-->Letter February 24, 1960 between Sherman E. Lee and Emery May Norweb, curatorial files.</div>"
                ],
                "date": "1960",
                "sortorder": 3
            },
            {
                "description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art by gift",
                "citations": [],
                "footnotes": [
                    "<ul><li><!--block-->Letter February 24, 1960 between Sherman E. Lee and Emery May Norweb, curatorial files.&nbsp;</li><li><!--block-->Press release, August 10, 1960 - https://archive.org/details/cmapr0592/mode/1up&nbsp;</li><li><!--block-->\"Year in Review\" December 1960 (catalogue #13).&nbsp;</li></ul>"
                ],
                "date": "1960\u2013",
                "sortorder": 4
            }
        ],
        "find_spot": null,
        "related_works": [],
        "former_accession_numbers": [],
        "did_you_know": "In the context of boys' initiations, the serpent headdress was sometimes identified as the rainbow, which the Baga and their neighbors associate with beginnings and endings, life and death, and the continuation of lineages.",
        "early_education_description": null,
        "artlens_description": null,
        "description": "Nearly five feet tall, this serpent headdress towered above crowds when danced. Its two faces seemed to look in all directions. Secured by a conical framework of palm branches on a costumed man\u2019s head, it appeared at key points in initiation rites for both boys and girls. This multi-colored snake may be the serpent-spirit Ninkinanka. It can be likened to the rainbow, whose changing colors evoke how boys transform into men during initiation. A staged circa 1954 photograph depicts the serpent headdress now at the CMA. Serpent masquerades stopped in the mid-1950s when most Nalu and Baga people converted to Islam.",
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            "wikidata": [],
            "internet_archive": [
                "https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1960.37-serpent-headdress"
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        },
        "citations": [
            {
                "citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art, and Case Western Reserve University. 1975. <em>Traditions and Revisions : Themes from the History of Sculpture</em>. Cleveland, Kent, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art ; Distributed by the Kent State University Press, cat. 117.",
                "page_number": "",
                "url": ""
            },
            {
                "citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art, and Henry John Drewal. 1989. <em>African Art : A Brief Guide to the Collection : The Cleveland Museum of Art</em>. Cleveland: Museum, fig. 28.",
                "page_number": "",
                "url": ""
            },
            {
                "citation": "<em>The Visual Arts of Africa : Gender, Power, and Life Cycle Rituals</em>. 2022 Second ed. New York: Oxford University Press, fig. 3.6, p. 83-84.",
                "page_number": "",
                "url": ""
            },
            {
                "citation": "Franklin, David, C. Griffith Mann, and Cleveland Museum of Art. 2012. <em>Treasures from the Cleveland Museum of Art</em>. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, p. 286-7.",
                "page_number": "",
                "url": ""
            },
            {
                "citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art, \u201cRecent Acquisition Press Release,\u201d August 10, 1960, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.",
                "page_number": null,
                "url": "https://archive.org/details/cmapr0592"
            },
            {
                "citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art, \u201cRecent Acquisition Press Release,\u201d October 25, 1960, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.",
                "page_number": null,
                "url": "https://archive.org/details/cmapr0627"
            },
            {
                "citation": "Wixom, William. \"Two African Tribal Sculptures.\" <em>The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art </em>48, no. 3 (March 1961): 39-45.",
                "page_number": "Reproduced: p. 38, fig 1-3; Mentioned: p. 40",
                "url": "https://www.jstor.org/stable/25142440"
            },
            {
                "citation": "William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, and Ralph T. Coe. <em>The Imagination of Primitive Man: A Survey of the Arts of the Non-Literate Peoples of the World</em>. Kansas City, Mo: The Museum, 1962.",
                "page_number": "Mentioned: p. 11, 17, cat. no. 18",
                "url": null
            },
            {
                "citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. <em>Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966</em>. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.",
                "page_number": "Reproduced: p. 302",
                "url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1966/page/n326"
            },
            {
                "citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. <em>Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969</em>. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.",
                "page_number": "Reproduced: p. 302",
                "url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1969/page/n326"
            },
            {
                "citation": "Wixom, William D. \u201cAfrican Art in the Cleveland Museum of Art.\u201d <em>African Arts</em> 10, no. 3 (1977): 16\u201388.",
                "page_number": "Reproduced: p. 23, fig. 11; mentioned: p. 24",
                "url": "https://doi.org/10.2307/3335296"
            },
            {
                "citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. <em>Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978</em>. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.",
                "page_number": "Reproduced: p. 410",
                "url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1978/page/n430"
            },
            {
                "citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art. <em>Images of the Mind.</em> Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1987.",
                "page_number": "Reproduced: [p. 22]",
                "url": ""
            },
            {
                "citation": "Robbins, Warren M., and Nancy Ingram Nooter. <em>African Art in American Collections, Survey 1989</em>. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989.",
                "page_number": "Reproduced: p. 143, fig. 247",
                "url": null
            },
            {
                "citation": "Petridis, Constantijn. <em>South of the Sahara: selected works of African art. </em>Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2003.",
                "page_number": "Reproduced: cat. 12, p. 54 - 55",
                "url": ""
            },
            {
                "citation": "Petridis, Constantine. \u201cSpirit-Bringer-of-Riches: News on Cleveland's serpent headdress.\u201d <em>Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine</em> 56, no. 5 (September/October 2016): 14-15.",
                "page_number": "Reproduced: p. 14; Mentioned: p. 14, 15",
                "url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMM2016-05"
            },
            {
                "citation": "Petridis, Constantine. \"Not Just a Snake: New Light on the Serpent Headdress at the Cleveland Museum of Art.\"<em> Tribal Art 21</em>, no. 1 (Winter 2016): 122-127.",
                "page_number": "Reproduced: p. 122, fig. 1a & b; p. 127, fig. 9",
                "url": null
            },
            {
                "citation": "Curtis, Marie Yvonne. <em>Baga</em>. Milan, Italy : 5 Continents Editions, 2018.",
                "page_number": "Reproduced: p. 77, pl. 12; mentioned: pp. 39, 123",
                "url": null
            },
            {
                "citation": "Smith, Fred T., Judith Perani, Joseph L. Underwood, and Martha J. Ehrlich. The Visual Arts of Africa : Gender, Power, and Life Cycle Rituals. Second edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022.",
                "page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: p. 90, no. 4.4",
                "url": ""
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        "alternate_titles": [
            "Snake Headdress (Basonyi)"
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}