Head (1650–1700): Art, History and Details

Head (1650–1700) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Akan sculptures made head forms as idealized portraits of the deceased. Made of terracotta, a low-termperature fired ceramic, this head features simple shapes of triangles, curves, and lozenges to represent the nose, mouth, and eyes. The style of this terracotta memorial head allows us to date it, and locate its likely place of manufacture. Scholars believe that this small, hollow-backed style sculpture is from the Ahinsan funerary site and was made between 1650 and 1700.

Object facts

• Title: Head
• Date: 1650–1700
• Culture: Africa, West Africa, Ghana, Akan-style artist
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: terracotta
• Dimensions: Overall: 12.7 cm (5 in.)
• Collection: African Art
• Department: African Art
• Accession number: 1975.157

A detail from the museum

The projection below the neck would allow this head to function as a stopper for a vessel or as a way to affix it to the body of a statue.

Collection credit

Gift of Katherine C. White

Further reading listed by the museum

• Fagg, William. African Tribal Images; the Katherine White Reswick Collection. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1968.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.