Head of a Hobbyhorse (korèdugaso) (late 1800s–early 1900s): Art, History and Details

Head of a Hobbyhorse (korèdugaso) (late 1800s–early 1900s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Pertaining to the male initiation society called Korè, this sculpture from the Koulikoro region represents the head of an aardvark and is part of a wooden hobbyhorse that is mounted by a ritual buffoon. The Korè initiates are divided into different classes, each having a designated mask. The ritual buffoons appear in pantomimes on different public occasions and poke fun at village authorities and other high-ranking individuals.

Object facts

• Title: Head of a Hobbyhorse (korèdugaso)
• Date: late 1800s–early 1900s
• Culture: Africa, West Africa, Mali, Bamana blacksmith
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: Wood and iron
• Dimensions: Overall: 14 x 13.8 x 40.8 cm (5 1/2 x 5 7/16 x 16 1/16 in.)
• Collection: African Art
• Department: African Art
• Accession number: 1935.307

A detail from the museum

This is one of the best-known examples of a korèdugaso. It was featured on the catalogue cover for a 1935 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, one of the first on African arts in the US. It traveled to the CMA that same year.

Collection credit

James Albert Ford Memorial Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.), and James Johnson Sweeney. African Negro Art. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1935.
• Flint Institute of Arts. Art Marches on!: The Opening and Dedicating Exhibition of the New Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, Michigan, November 14-December 13, 1941. Flint, Mich: The Institute, 1941.
• Radin, Paul, and James Johnson Sweeney. African Folktales & Sculpture. New York: Pantheon Books, 1952.

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.