Varia
A dozen Djenne Terracottas
"Figurative and animal sculpture in terra cotta was produced by people inhabiting the Inland Niger Delta between the 11th and the 17th centuries, a period marked by the successive trans-Saharan trading empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai in West Africa.
"Because the majority of these works emerged via market forces during the 1970s and '80s, as opposed to via archaeological excavation, little is known about their original context, their functions, or the populations who produced them. Scholars have little sense of the scope of the corpus or its regional distribution and are at a loss to understand chronological relationships between sculptures."
Kristina Van Dyke
Extract from: Ancestors of Congo Square
© 2011 New Orleans Museum of Art
Djenne terracotta #01 • Private Collection, Brussels • Reproduced in The World of
Tribal Arts (1999, v.3), p. 78
Yale # 0039327
Djenne terracotta #02 • The Menil Collection, Houston, TX • Access # 81-56 DJ • Reproduced in African Art from the Menil Collection edited by Kristina Van Dyke (The Menil Collection, 2008), p. 66
Yale # 0110785
Djenne terracotta #03 • New Orleans Museum of Art • Gift of the Robert and Helen Kuhn Families
• Access # 97.138 • Reproduced in • Ancestors of Congo Square, African Art in the New Orleans Museum of
Art edited by William Fagaly (Scala, 2011), p. 25
Yale # 0017347
Djenne terracotta #04 • Collection Marc Blanpain • Reproduced in Rêves de Beauté -
Sculptures africaines de la collection Blanpain edited by Bernard de Grunne (5 Continents Editions, 2005), p. 66
Yale # 0103949
Djenne terracotta #05 • Collection Drs. Daniel and Marian Malcolm • Reproduced in Echoing Images - Couples in African Sculpture (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004), p. 12
Yale # 0051443
Djenne terracotta #06 • Collection Marc Blanpain • Reproduced in Rêves de Beauté - Sculptures africaines de la collection Blanpain edited by Bernard de Grunne (5 Continents Editions, 2005), p. 61
Yale # 0103943
Djenne terracotta #07 • Private Collection, New York • Reproduced in Africa: The Art of
a Continent edited by Tom Phillips (Prestel Verlag, 1999), p. 491
Yale # 0068123
Djenne terracotta #08 • Private Collection • Reproduced in Earth and Ore - 2500 Years
of African Art in Terra-cotta and Metal edited by Karl-Ferdinand Schaedler (Panterra Verlag, 1997), p. 56
Yale # 0019314
Djenne terracotta #09 • Barbier-Mueller Museum, Geneva • Access # 1004-78 • Reproduced in African Terra Cottas, A Millenary Heritage edited by Floriane Morin & Boris Wastiau (Musée Barbier-Mueller & Somogy Editions d’Art, 2008), p.
87
Yale # 0017337
Djenne terracotta #10 • The Menil Collection,
Houston, TX • Reproduced in African Art from the Menil Collection edited by Kristina Van Dyke (The Menil Collection, 2008),
p. 69
Yale # 0110787
Djenne terracotta #11 • Private Collection • Reproduced in Africa: The Art of a
Continent edited by Tom Phillips (Prestel Verlag, 1999), p. 494
Yale # 0001834
Djenne terracotta #12 • Private Collection • Reproduced in Tribal Art
Magazine (2009, n°52), p.21
Yale # 0128813
More examples available here.