Female Headdress (Nimba, D'mba, or Yamban)

Mid 19th-early 20th century

Baga
Guinea
Coastal West Africa

This majestic headdress embellished with upholstery tacks depicts the traditional Baga ideal of mature womanhood, with pendulous breasts that connote child-bearing and nurturing. The incised lines covering its surface mimic body scarification, and it was originally colored with pigments. These massive sculptures are worn by young men in entertainment masquerades that celebrate Baga ethnicity. In the late 1950s Baga art traditions and related religious practices were temporarily abandoned due to the introduction of Islam into the region and the “demystification” campaign of Guinea’s first president. The country achieved independence in 1958 after the Islamic Revolution of 1954–57, and this national program was aimed at purging traditional religion of its essential mysticism. In practice, demystification led to persecution and the massive destruction of ritual art. Baga culture and art was subsequently revived in the late 1980s.

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

Culture: Baga
Title: Female Headdress (Nimba, D'mba, or Yamban)
Place: Guinea (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.: 1850–1925
Medium: Wood and pigment
Dimensions: 119.4 × 33 × 59.1 cm (47 × 13 × 23 1/4 in.)
Credit Line: W. G. Field Fund, Inc.; Edward E. Ayer Endowment in memory of Charles L. Hutchinson
Reference Number: 1957.160

C.H. Long, Alpha: The Myths of Creation (New York: George Braziller, 1963), pl. 17.
Allen Wardwell, Primitive Art in the Collections of the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1965), p. 51, pl. 50.
Pavel Eisner, Gabrielle Roy, and Guy Robert, eds. Terre des Hommes: Man and his World, exh. cat. (Canadian Coporation for the International Fine Arts Exhibition, 1967), pp. 318-319, cat. 151.
Frederick Lamp, Art of the Baga, exh. cat. (Museum for African Art and Prestel Verlag, 1996), pp. 259-260, no. 250.
Marie Yvonne Curis and Ramon Sarro, “The Nimba Headdress: Art, Ritual, and History of the Baga and Nalu Peoples of Guinea,” The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 23, 2 (1997), pp. 120-133, cat. no. 13.
Kathleen Bickford Berzock, “African Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” African Arts 32, 4 (Winter 1999), pp. 18-35, 93, fig. 1.
Larry Shiner, The Invention of Art: A Cultural History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), p. 271, fig. 77.
Richard F. Townsend and Kathleen Bickford Berzock, “The Art Institute of Chicago New Galleries for African Art and Indian Art of the Americas,” in Tribal Arts 16-1, no. 62 (Winter 2011), p. 60, fig. 1 (installation photo).
Constantine Petridis et al., Speaking of Objects: African Art at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2020), cat. no. 18, pp. 68-69 (ill.).

Montreal International and Universal Exposition, International Fine Arts Exhibition, Terre des Hommes: Man and his World, Apr. 28–Oct. 27, 1967, cat. 151.
New York, N.Y., Museum for African Art, Art of the Baga: A Drama of Cultural Reinvention, Oct. 4, 1996–Jan. 5, 1997, cat. 250; traveled to the Baltimore Museum of Art, Jan. 29–Apr. 20, 1997.

Reportedly acquired in Guinea, about 1955 [unattributed statement documented in curatorial object file]. John J. Klejman (died 1995), Klejman Gallery, New York, N.Y., by 1957 [possibly purchased in London according to correspondence with Susanne Klejman Bennet, 2013, as recorded in curatorial object file]; sold to the Art Institute, 1957.

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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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