Maternity Figure (Phemba)

The Kongo established a kingdom on the Atlantic coast of what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo-Brazzaville, and Angola dating back to the 15th century. The art of the Kongo people is an admixture of indigenous styles and it introduced iconography based on a short period of conversion to Christianity.

Though executed in numerous stylistic variations indicative of specific carvers or ateliers, these sculptures all depict youthful females on raised pedestals and holding infants on their laps or, as in this case, in their arms. The bodies are often covered in classical Kongo scarification, while attributes such as coiffure and ornamentation indicate nobility. The infants may lay supine or with bent arms and legs.

It had been assumed that these sculptures depict some combination of the mother of the chief, the principal wife of the chief, or in the case of a figure with a supine child, a wife of the chief whose child had died, and functioned as royal images or memorials.Others suggest that these images were used in connection with a woman’s fertility cult.

This maternity figure is a tour de force of Kongo carving as much for its absolute mastery of canonical elements as for its successful juxtaposition of the sensual and the arrogant - the youthful perky breasts, full cheeks and fleshy body of the fertile woman, in contrast to the rigid posture and expression of phlegmatic nobility, which creates an inner tension within the composition that is both dynamic and compelling. It is also an extremely rare example as the female figure is standing and holding the child as opposed to sitting cross-legged.

This figure is one of the finest examples of this sub-style of the genre, coming at the end of the traditional period of Kongo art, but before the complete disintegration of the style for sale to Western visitors.