Headrest (Isicamelo or Isigqiki)

CC0 Public Domain Designation

19th century

Zulu
South Africa

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, a neckrest formed part of a bride’s dowry. Though highly abstracted, the form of this example appropriately evokes a bull, a source of wealth and a means of ancestral communication. However, its exceptionally large size suggests that this neckrest may have been a nonfunctional prestige object in the treasury of a nobleman.

Status: On View, Gallery 137
Department: Arts of Africa

Culture: Northern Nguni
Title: Headrest (Isicamelo or Isigqiki)
Place: South Africa (Object made in)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1801–1900
Medium: Wood
Dimensions: 17.8 × 44.5 × 16.1 cm (7 × 17 1/4 × 6 3/8 in.)
Credit Line: Edward E. Ayer Endowment in memory of Charles L. Hutchinson
Reference Number: 1996.434
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/145678/manifest.json

Constantine Petridis et al., Speaking of Objects: African Art at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2020), cat. no. 68, pp. 166-173 (ill.).

Private collection, England, by 1990; sold, Christie’s, South Kensington, Tribal Art sale ETH 3927, Oct. 2, 1990, lot 266, as “An Unusual Southern African Headrest;” to Kevin Conru, Tribal Art, London; sold to the Art Institute, 1996.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.