Bankoni Bougouni region, Mali Northern Africa and the Sahel
About this artwork
Terracotta figures like this set might have served a ritual purpose. The adornment on the figures, including the hairstyles and possible scarification marks, suggest status and wealth. The horse-and-rider with a knife strapped to his left arm may evoke the significant role that cavalry played in the expansion of empires and control of trade routes in West Africa during past centuries.
The descriptive term Bankoni derives from the village where archaeologists unearthed similar objects from the 1950s onward. Located near Bamako, Mali’s capital, this region is today inhabited by the Bamana people, whose ancestors are believed to have made works in a similar style. These five figures were not excavated in a scientific context but recent tests and scans have helped to confirm their age and regional origins.
Date
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Kathleen Bickford Berzock, “Equestrian and Four Figures,” The Silk Road and Beyond: Travel, Trade, and Transformation, Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 33, 1 (2007), pp. 52-53 (ill.).
Katie Dowling, Art Express: Images of African and African American Art (Art Institute of Chicago, 1996), pl. 1 (ill.).
Kathleen E. Bickford and Cherise Smith, “Art of the Western Sudan,” African Art at the Art Institute of Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 23, 2 (1997), pp. 108-109, fig. 2 (ill.).
Kathleen Bickford Berzock, “African Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” African Arts 32, 4 (Winter 1999), pp. 30-31, fig. 17 (ill.).
Monica Blackmun Visona, Robin Poyner, and Herbert M. Cole, A History of Art in Africa (Harry N. Abrams, 2000), pp. 110 (ill.).
Kathleen Bickford Berzock, editor. 2019. Caravans of Gold: Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange Across Medieval Saharan Africa. Exh. cat. Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University with Princeton University Press, pg. 35 (ill).
Constantine Petridis et al., Speaking of Objects: African Art at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2020), cat. no. 3, pp. 32-33.
Art Institute of Chicago, The Silk Road and Beyond: Travel, Trade, and Transformation, Sept. 30, 2006–Apr. 22, 2007, pp. 52-53 (ill).
Evanston, Ill., Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange Across Medieval Saharan Africa, Jan. 26–July 21, 2019, cat. pg. 35, fig. 1.14; traveled to Toronto, the Aga Khan Museum, Sept. 21, 2019–Feb. 23, 2020; and Washington, D.C., National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, July 16, 2021-Feb. 27, 2022 (previously Apr. 8–Nov. 29, 2020 but postponed by pandemic).
Sarah Brett-Smith, Professor, Rutgers University, Jan. 1987 [export documentation dated Jan. 6, 1987 and acquisition documentation in curatorial file]; sold to the Art Institute, 1987.
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