Page 68 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

any certainty to the period before the arrival of figurative arts at that time: the creation of production of these ivories began before, for as
the Portuguese, there is considerable support works of art for export, those now known as early as 1560 five spoons from Benin figured
for the conclusion that artistic creation and a Afro-Portuguese ivories. among the possessions of the Florentine Grand
high level of artisanry flourished in the king- The term, coined in 1959 by William Fagg, 29 Duke Cosimo i de' Medici (cats. 72-76). 34
dom prior to contact with Europe. The Portu- covers a group of saltcellars, pyxes, spoons, The reason such precious objects were pro-
guese chronicles, in fact, record among the gifts forks, knife and dagger handles, and oliphants duced—works destined in some cases for the
received from Kongo in 1488 "objects in ivory that were carved within the span of a few dec- kings of Portugal and Spain, as we know from
well worked and many garments in palm fiber ades beginning at the end of the fifteenth cen- the coats of arms carved on some of the saltcel-
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well woven and with delicate colors/' Such tury, either commissioned directly by the lars and oliphants (cats. 70 and 77) — is readily
fabrics and ivory objects found their way into Portuguese visitors or created to be sold to explained by the abundance of ivory available at
the European princely collections and curiosity them. Elements native to the two cultures are this time and by the proven professional capac-
cabinets in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- harmoniously integrated in these ivories, of ity of the local carvers. It is inconceivable that
turies. which a corpus of about two hundred works has objects of such sophistication and technical per-
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Two splendid ivory oliphants, with their sur- thus far been identified. European models are fection could have originated only in response
faces covered by an exquisite geometrical deco- particularly recognizable in the decoration of to a sudden demand from abroad. In any case,
ration using typical Kongo motifs, were among the saltcellars and liturgical vessels, and in many the ultimate proof that the origin of these
the possessions in 1553 of Grand Duke Cosimo i cases it is possible to identify the probable works is connected to local artistic traditions
de' Medici, ruler of Florence (cat. 78). It can source of the designs (see Fagg and Bassani, lies in the stylistic characteristics we have
reasonably be supposed that these were gifts 1988). described that relate the Afro-Portuguese
sent by the Kongo monarch, a convert to Chris- The records from 1504-1505 of the treasurer ivories to works of art that do not presuppose
tianity, to a pontiff of the great Florentine fam- of the Casa de Guine, the Portuguese admini- contact with Europe, to the stone sculptures in
ily, perhaps even Giovanni de' Medici—who strative headquarters for overseas commerce, 31 the case of the Sapi and to the indigenous
was Pope Leo x from 1513 to 1521 and who along with statements from Portuguese chroni- ivories and bronzes in the case of Benin.
appointed the Kongo prince Henrique bishop clers of the time, like Duarte Pacheco Pereira This brief survey is meant to serve simply as
of Uticain 1518. 25 and Valentim Fernandes, are evidence that such an introduction to a broad and complex subject,
The first explicit mention in a European ivory objects were indeed sent to Portugal from as is the selection of objects included in the
source of palm fiber fabrics worked like velvet, Africa. The chronicles are in accord in their exhibition. The cultures described and repre-
using the same geometrical decoration that was admiration for the African carvers' skill. Fer- sented are by no means the only art-producing
carved on the ivory horns, is found in Duarte nandes, in his description of West Africa writ- cultures of the period. The Age of Exploration
Pacheco Pereira's invaluable account, Esmeraldo ten between 1506 and 1510, states that "in did not bring about this period of extraordinary
de Situ Orbis, which is thought to have been Sierra Leone, men are very clever and make artistic production. As we have seen, in each
written between 1506 and 1508. There the extremely beautiful objects as spoons, saltcel- cultural area the indigenous roots of the tech-
author states that "in this kingdom of Kongo lars, and dagger hilts." 32 niques and styles are clear. Even the Afro-Por-
they make fabrics with a nap like velvet, some For the ivories from Benin, on the other tuguese ivories are a logical outgrowth of local
of them worked in velvety satin, so beautiful hand, we have only a single and considerably traditions, although they also reflect the oppor-
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that nothing finer is made in Italy/' no mean later account. The English navigator James tunities presented by the new European market.
compliment at that time. Welsh, in the report of his voyages that he Taken as a whole, these West African works
The passage quoted is intriguing, as is the wrote in 1588, stated that the inhabitants of remind us of the exceptional artistic vitality that
listing of some Kongo fabrics in the inventory Benin produce "elephant tooth spoons, curi- prevailed in the world around 1492, all the more
of the estate of a Portuguese colonist who died ously carved with different kinds of birds and extraordinary in that its manifestations were so
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in Sao Tome in 1507, where they are specified animals on them." It is clear, however, that the often independent of one another.
as avjlotados, "velvety/' These demonstrate
beyond any doubt that the procedure for making
palm fiber textiles similar to velvet was an
independent African achievement, the product
of a textile industry that must have had roots
far in the past, if it could produce cloth of such
refinement. The chorus of European admiration
for these textiles runs through the centuries.
For example, in 1664, Paolo Maria Terzago
noted that the Kongo textiles in the Museo Set-
taliano in Milan reflected "an art so great as to
surpass our cloth of worked silk/' 28

Afro-Portuguese Ivories
In Sierra Leone, Benin, and perhaps Zaire, the fig. 3. Raffia cloth, Zaire or
encounter and resulting cultural interchange Angola. Seventeenth
between the Portuguese and Africans produced century. Nationalmuseet,
a phenomenon unique in the history of African Copenhagen

EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD 67