Pin for a Hat (early 1900s): Art, History and Details

Pin for a Hat (early 1900s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Titled Kuba men and prominent women wear the laket, a small ornate dome-shaped hat. An essential fashion item of adult men in good social standing, it focuses special attention on the head as a significant marker of individual identity, ethnic affiliation, status, and role in society. This prestige object is secured on the crown of the head with a large metal pin like this example that pierces through the hat onto a section of hair.

Object facts

• Title: Pin for a Hat
• Date: early 1900s
• Culture: Africa, Central Africa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kuba-style maker
• Type: Garment
• Technique: Metal
• Collection: African Art
• Department: African Art
• Accession number: 1915.466.b

Collection credit

Educational Purchase Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Nzewi, Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Second Careers : Two Tributaries in African Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2019
• Nzewi, Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Second Careers : Two Tributaries in African Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2019

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.