Kumbi Bed Panel: Six Seated Figures and Dog
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.The process of defining a woman’s social identity in precolonial western Kongo communities is the subject of the imagery of this carved panel. Following a girl’s initial menstrual cycle, her betrothal might be negotiated between a suitor and her maternal uncle (khazi). Once gifts of palm wine and a down payment on the dowry were provided, she was isolated in the kumbi nzo (a house of seclusion outside the village). The interior of the kumbi nzo was decorated with richly colored woven mats, and its centerpiece was a bed with elaborately carved panels like this one that depicts the nude initiates with their future spouses and maternal uncle.
Artwork Details
- Title: Kumbi Bed Panel: Six Seated Figures and Dog
- Artist: Master of Kasadi Workshop
- Date: 19th–early 20th century, inventoried 1934
- Geography: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kangu village (?)
- Culture: Kongo peoples; Yombe group
- Medium: Adansonia digitata L. wood, pigments
- Dimensions: H. 10 15/16 × W. 33 7/8 × D. 4 3/4 in. (27.8 × 86 × 12 cm)
- Classification: Wood-Sculpture
- Credit Line: Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgium
- Curatorial Department: The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing