1996.184.FA Nkisi Nkondi

All minkisi (sing. nkisi) are containers for consecrated substances, or "medicine," that empower them to protect, heal, or destroy. Each figure has a special name, a specific function, and a ritual to activate it. This one belongs to a class of minkisi called mikondi (sing. nkondi), a reference to a wooden sculpture that is stuck with nails or blades. Its name, Mangaaka, means "one who strikes fear into the beholder," and its pose is called vonganana, or "to come on strong." When awakened by a ritual specialist hammering a nail or blade into its body, this large-scale figure acted on behalf of a community or association to protect it from negative forces, seal an oath, or hunt an evildoer.

This nkisi is one of twenty that originated in a single workshop on the Chiloango River, each with staring eyes, a beard, and an abdominal cavity covered by a large cowrie shell. Additionally, each wears a fiber skirt and ornate chief's hat and is realistically modeled with massive shoulders, a hands-on-hip pose, and feet placed on separate rectangular blocks.

Roslyn A. Walker, Label text, Arts of Africa, 2015.

Before 1952-1973: Dr. Jan Olaf Ollers (1917-2001), Stockholm [1]

1973-about 1975: Morris Pinto, New York

About 1975-1996: Jean-Claude Belier, Paris

1996: Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts Collection, purchased from L & R Entwistle & Co LTD (Lance and Roberta Entwistle), London [2], [3]

Notes:

The main source for this provenance is the preexisting data in the digital collections record.

[1] Dr. Jan Olof Ollers (b. Stockholm 1917- d. Toronto 2001) began forming his collection in the 1930s. He also collected Asian and Northwest Coast American Indian art. He was an eye surgeon. His interest in the visual arts was probably encouraged by his father, a painter who had an art school.

 

[2] The Foundation for the Arts is a non-profit corporation created as a title-holding entity to serve the people of Dallas but to operate independently of the City. In 1976, Mrs. John B. O'Hara bequest an endowment in her name to contribute to the Foundation's collection. The Dallas Museum of Art (at its own cost) is responsible for the care, storage, insurance, conservation and maintenance of the collection, and agrees to maintain the highest museum standards in the management and handling of the Foundation's collection. The title to all works of art purchased or otherwise acquired by the Foundation for the Arts is retained by the Foundation.

[3] See the copy of the Guarantee and Indemnity in the Collections Records object file.

Curator Roslyn Walker discusses this standing power figure, 12937190: UMO

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