Collections: African Art

Grave Marker (Tumba). Democratic Republic of the Congo. Kongo ba Boma artist, 19th century. Steatite, pigment, 23 x 6 x 6 in. (58.4 x 15.2 x 15.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Museum Expedition 1922, Robert B. Woodward Memorial Fund, 22.1203

Stone is only rarely used as a medium for sculpture in sub-Saharan Africa. This figure, carved from steatite, or soapstone, with details of the eyes painted in, belongs to a group of sculptures known as tumba (plural: bitumba). They were made to adorn the graves of important members of a community. In this case, the figure of a seated ruler wears beads, bracelets, and an mpu cap, a woven, tight-fitting hat adorned with the claws and teeth of a leopard and reserved for use by chiefs.

The asymmetrical, active pose is rare in African sculpture, which is usually frontal and static. The coastal area of the Congo and Angola where these works are found has been exposed to trade with Europeans, especially the Portuguese, for hundreds of years. It appears that the creation of these figures developed in the mid-nineteenth century and lasted into the first decades of the twentieth. They are called tumba from the old Portuguese word for tomb, and the art form itself was probably inspired by the narrative monuments for Europeans buried in Kongo cemeteries.

The posture has been interpreted as a chief in a pensive mood distancing himself from the noise of the mundane world in order to concentrate on important matters. As he smokes his short-stemmed pipe, he communicates with the spirits of his ancestors.