Page 187 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

Guine, nor are they mentioned among the cre- various figures very elegantly carved"), thus eli- teenth and first half of the sixteenth century, as
ations of Sierra Leone artists in the early sixteenth- minating any doubt as to the object's origin. well as in drawings, miniatures, and prints of the
century reports of Duarte Pacheco Pereira and Horns made from an elephant's tusk (and thus same period. Analogies with small images printed
Valentim Fernandes, who describe "spoons, salt- called "oliphants"), usually carved by Arabian along the borders of some prayer books, particu-
cellars, and handles for daggers/' Nonetheless, artists, were common in Europe during the larly the small incunabulum Home Beatae Mariae
thirty-six ivory horns of quite large size (between Middle Ages and the Renaissance. They must Virginis, printed in Paris in 1498 by Philippe
26 and 68 cm.) have come down to us (Bassani and have been even more widespread in Africa, where Pigouchet for Simon Vostre and widely distrib-
Fagg 1988, nos. 75-110). The absence of any ivory was abundant before the arrival of the Euro- uted, are so close as to suggest that the devotional
record in the Casa de Guine could be explained by peans. The horns used in Africa differ from those books served as models for some of the ivories.
the assumption that the horns were destined for made for export, both in terms of shape and in the Some horns have carvings in high relief of
the royal palace, which would be supported by the way they are played; the mouthpiece is on the hunters holding dogs on leashes or carrying their
presence of the royal coat of arms carved on the side (on the inside of the curve of the tusk in prey over their shoulders; the latter strongly
sides of many of the horns. This would account instruments from Sierra Leone) instead of at one recall images of the Good Shepherd in Christian
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for the horns exemption from tax. end. They also lack the rings for attaching a cord, iconography. Heraldic motifs such as the crowned
An oliphant that was in the Collegio Romano, which are always found on European horns. lion, fantastic creatures such as unicorns, cen-
the museum of the Jesuits in Rome, and is now in The mouthpiece of the Sapi-Portuguese oli- taurs, and harpies, the sun and moon all make up
the Museo Luigi Pigorini, is the only ivory identi- phants mimic the teeth and jaws of animals of part of the decoration. Oriental motifs also
fiable as Afro-Portuguese whose African origin prey. On some examples a winged dragon is appear: the two birds with entwined necks on the
was recognized as early as the eighteenth century. sculpted in the round; both elements also can be Turin oliphant and on a few others, for example.
Father Filippo Bonanni, director of the museum seen in European objects, especially guns, dating This theme can be found in printed books from
and editor of its catalogue in 1709, described the from the beginning of the sixteenth century. the same epoch, but it ultimately derives from
horn, probably on the basis of documents no The bas-relief decorations on the sides of the Indian and, even more, from Islamic decorative
longer in existence, as "Cornu eburneum ex horns are usually deer-hunting scenes, carved traditions.
Africa alatum cum figuris variis elegantissime freely over the surface. The theme is common in Elements common in Portuguese Manueline
sculptis" ("Winged ivory horn from Africa with many Franco-Flemish tapestries of the late fif- architecture are found on the oliphants as well as

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