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"accession_number": "1994.200",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "If\u00e1 divination vessel (\u00e0g\u00e9r\u00e9 If\u00e1), mid- late 1800s. Africa, West Africa, Nigeria, possibly \u00c8k\u00ect\u00ec State, Yor\u00f9b\u00e1-style carver. Wood and colorant; overall: 31.7 x 15.7 x 15.9 cm (12 1/2 x 6 3/16 x 6 1/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund, 1994.200",
"current_location": null,
"title": "If\u00e1 divination vessel (\u00e0g\u00e9r\u00e9 If\u00e1)",
"creation_date": "mid- late 1800s",
"creation_date_earliest": 1850,
"creation_date_latest": 1899,
"artists_tags": [],
"culture": [
"Africa, West Africa, Nigeria, possibly \u00c8k\u00ect\u00ec State, Yor\u00f9b\u00e1-style carver"
],
"technique": "Wood and colorant",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "African Art",
"collection": "African Art",
"type": "Sculpture",
"measurements": "Overall: 31.7 x 15.7 x 15.9 cm (12 1/2 x 6 3/16 x 6 1/4 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"overall": {
"height": 0.317,
"height_inch": 12,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.5,
"width": 0.157,
"width_inch": 6,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.1875,
"depth": 0.159,
"depth_inch": 6,
"depth_inch_fraction": 0.25
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 412365,
"title": "The Language of Beauty in African Art",
"description": "The Language of Beauty in African Art. Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX (April 3-July 31, 2022) https://kimbellart.org/exhibition/language-beauty-african-art; The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (organizer) (November 20, 2022-February 27, 2023) https://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/9344/the-language-of-beauty-in-african-art.",
"opening_date": "2022-04-03T04:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "Yoruba: Nine Centuries of African Art, 1989-1991.",
"opening_date": "1989-01-01T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Charles Davis, by purchase in Togo ca.1979-1982",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "ca. 1979 to 1982-1994",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "(Davis Gallery, New Orleans, LA, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "by 1994",
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1994-",
"sortorder": 3
}
],
"find_spot": null,
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"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": null,
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "The mother figure of this vessel from the Southern Ekiti region represents a devotee who kneels before the gods. The vessel once held the 16 sacred palm nuts essential to divination rituals. The object was used by a priest as a medium through which to communicate with the god of fate, Orunmila, in order to gain insight into an individual\u2019s destiny or to understand the cause of misfortune.",
"external_resources": {
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"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60755689"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1994.200-mother-and-child-car",
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1994.200-ifa-divination-vesse"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Fagg, William, John Pemberton, and Bryce Holcombe. 1982. Yoruba, Sculpture of West Africa. 1st ed. New York: Knopf : Distributed by Random House, pl. 15.",
"page_number": "",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "New Orleans Museum of Art, University of Southwestern Louisiana University Art Museum, and Meadows Museum of Art. 1989. Shapes of Power, Belief, and Celebration : African Art from New Orleans Collections. New Orleans, Louisiana: New Orleans Museum of Art, cat. 72.",
"page_number": "",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Yoruba : Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought. 1989. New York: Center for African Art in association with H.N. Abrams Inc, fig. 229.",
"page_number": "",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Young-Sa\u0301nchez, Margaret. 1997. \u201cNew Acquisitions : The Cleveland Museum of Art.\u201d African Arts 30 (1), Winter 1997, p. 71.",
"page_number": "",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Petridis, Constantine. \"A New Installation for African Art in Cleveland.\" Tribal 3, no. 36 (Autumn/Winter 2004): 68-73.",
"page_number": "",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Franklin, David, C. Griffith Mann, and Cleveland Museum of Art. 2012. Treasures from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, p. 242-3.",
"page_number": "",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art, \u201cNew Acquisitions Enter the Cleveland Museum of Art\u2019s Permanent Collection,\u201d February 14, 1995, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.",
"page_number": null,
"url": "https://archive.org/details/cmapr3939/page/n1"
},
{
"citation": "Petridis, Constantijn. South of the Sahara: selected works of African art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2003.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: cat. 22, p. 74 - 75",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Cole, Herbert M. Maternity: Mothers and Children in the Arts of Africa.
Brussels : Mercatorfonds, 2017",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: p. 281-282, fig. 257",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Rondeau, James, Constantijn Petridis, Yae\u0308lle Biro, Herbert M. Cole, Kassim Kone, Babatunde Lawal, Wilfried Van Damme, and Susan Mullin Vogel. The language of beauty in African art. 2022.",
"page_number": "",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "\"The Language of Beauty in African Art.\" Kimbell Art Museum Members' Guide (March\u2013September 2022): 2-7.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: P. 4.",
"url": ""
}
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"creditline": "Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund",
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"alternate_titles": [
"Divination Cup",
"Mother-and-Child Caryatid Vessel (Agere Ifa),"
],
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"updated_at": "2026-05-29 08:11:48.401000"
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