Lidded Container

CC0 Public Domain Designation

Mid–late 19th century

Attributed to Unobhadule (active mid- to late 19th century)
Northern Nguni
KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Eastern and Southern Africa

The use of this container with its graceful ovoid form and incised linear pattern is unclear. It may have served as a prestige object for a high-ranking member of society—for instance, providing a place to store tobacco in honor of guests and ancestors on festive and ritual occasions. Recent scholarship suggests that it may have been made explicitly for sale to a foreign client, tourist, or resident.

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

Culture: Northern Nguni
Title: Lidded Container
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.: 1850–1900
Medium: Wood
Dimensions: 46 × 27.9 cm (18 1/8 × 11 in.)
Credit Line: Ada Turnbull Hertle Fund
Reference Number: 1979.539
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/58443/manifest.json

William J. Dewey, The World Moves, We Follow: Celebrating African Art, exh. cat. (Knoxville, Tenn.: Frank H. McClung Museum, University of Tennessee, 2003), pp. 41, pl. 42.
Kathleen Bickford Berzock, “African Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” African Arts 32, 4 (Winter 1999), pp. 31, fig. 16.
Art Institute of Chicago, The Essential Guide (Art Institute of Chicago, 2013), pg. 11.
Constantine Petridis et al., Speaking of Objects: African Art at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2020), cat. no. 72, pp. 180-181 (ill.).
Constantine Petridis, “Making Objects Speak at the Art Institute of Chicago: A New Publication and a Refurbished Arts of Africa Gallery,” in Tribal Art magazine (No. 99, Spring 2021), p. 115 (ill.).

Knoxville, Tenn., Frank H. McClung Museum, The World Moves, We Follow: Celebrating African Art, Jan. 10–May 18, 2003.

Merton D. Simpson Gallery, New York, before 1979 [this and the following according to personal communication with Linda Einfeld, 1987, documented in curatorial file]; sold to Linda Einfeld Sigel, Linda Einfeld Primitive Art, Chicago, Ill.; sold to the Art Institute, 1979.

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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.