Prestige Cap (mpu ngola) (late 1800s–early 1900s): Art, History and Details

Prestige Cap (mpu ngola) (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:

Zimpu (singular: mpu) are intricately knotted caps worn by men in parts of Central Africa. Ringed with leopard claws, this long cap (mpu ngola) once belonged to a high-status man; the fierce feline attachments alluded to his personal qualities, as both were seen as leaders in their domains. Its interlacing motifs appear across artforms made by the Kongo, Vili, and Yombe peoples. When new, caps draped over the head. However, raffia fibers stiffen over time. To support this now-delicate ngola, the CMA’s conservators mounted it upright. Known since at least 1607 in the former Loango Kingdom, as well as the adjacent Kongo Kingdom, such caps were once made by noblemen and worn into at least the 1980s.

Object facts

• Title: Prestige Cap (mpu ngola)
• Date: late 1800s–early 1900s
• Culture: Africa, Central Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo, or Cabinda (Angola), Kongo-style maker, possibly Yombe subgroup
• Type: Garment
• Technique: Raffia palm fiber (Raphia ruffia or R. vinifera) and leopard claws
• Dimensions: Overall: 42 x 19.3 x 19 cm (16 9/16 x 7 5/8 x 7 1/2 in.)
• Collection: African Art
• Department: African Art
• Accession number: 1997.180

A detail from the museum

The geometric motifs on this mpu cap—including diamonds and interlaces—are seen on Kongo, Vili, and Yombe works in other materials, including ivory and basketry.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Petridis, Constantine. South of the Sahara: Selected Works of African Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art; Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press (distributor), 2003, 17, fig. 6.
• Sims, Lowery Stokes. The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2006, 118; color repr. p. 53, no. 46.
• Cleveland Museum of Art. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014.

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.