Headrest (Isicamelo or Isigqiki)

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: 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
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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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