Power Figure: Standing Male with Raised Arm (Nkisi)
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.While minkisi are referred to in accounts of Kongo society by European clerics from the sixteenth century on, they were not collected by Westerners until the nineteenth century. Until that time Europeans regarded such artifacts as spiritually potent competition to their own religious beliefs. In this example, the torso is a hollowed rectangular receptacle for empowering matter added by a religious specialist to attract a force within. The figurative container was commissioned from a regionally renowned carver whose work was in great demand and whose talents are evident in a variety of sculptural forms.
Artwork Details
- Title: Power Figure: Standing Male with Raised Arm (Nkisi)
- Artist: Master of Kasadi Workshop
- Date: 19th–early 20th century
- Geography: Democratic Republic of the Congo; Republic of the Congo; Cabinda, Angola
- Culture: Kongo peoples; Yombe group
- Medium: Wood, metal, mirrored glass, resin
- Dimensions: H. 13 in. (33 cm), W. 4 3/4 in. (12 cm), D. 4 3/8 in. (11 cm)
- Classification: Wood-Sculpture
- Credit Line: Private collection, Paris
- Curatorial Department: The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing