Skip Navigation

Elephant Tusk Carved with Figures in Relief

Arts of Africa

The staff has long been a symbol of authority and power in Western culture. Contact between Europe and Africa transplanted both the form and its meaning to Africa during the European Renaissance, and the African staff took on new forms of decoration. By the mid-nineteenth century, African craftsmen were also carving ivory tusks specifically for the export market with horizontal bands of narrative figures spiraling up the form. These were based on African side-blown horns, which had been carved with similar decoration, but in the works for export the function of a horn has been lost in favor of the value to Westerners of the ivory, which was traded along the same routes as slaves.
CULTURE Vili
MEDIUM Ivory, graphite
DATES late 19th century
DIMENSIONS 39 x 4 3/8 x 8 x 4 in. (99.1 x 11.1 x 20.3 x 10.2 cm)  (show scale)
COLLECTIONS Arts of Africa
ACCESSION NUMBER 35.679
CREDIT LINE A. Augustus Healy Fund
CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION Ivory tusk with carved spiral low relief. A procession winds in a spiral from the base to the tip of the tusk giving a pageant of life with about 150 figures, mostly men and women but also including monkeys in trees, elephants eating palms, leopards, fish and serpents. Many of the figures wear typical skirts and blouses of the 1880's and tip narrow-brimmed hats to each other when they meet. The making and drinking of palm wine is depicted and there are passages which show authority being exercised by means of the sword. Also, there are domestic scenes. Graphite used throughout. CONDITION: Good.
MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
CAPTION Vili. Elephant Tusk Carved with Figures in Relief, late 19th century. Ivory, graphite, 39 x 4 3/8 x 8 x 4 in. (99.1 x 11.1 x 20.3 x 10.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, A. Augustus Healy Fund, 35.679. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 35.679_view1_PS1.jpg)
IMAGE overall, 35.679_view1_PS1.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2007
"CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.
RIGHTS STATEMENT Creative Commons-BY
You may download and use Brooklyn Museum images of this three-dimensional work in accordance with a Creative Commons license. Fair use, as understood under the United States Copyright Act, may also apply. Please include caption information from this page and credit the Brooklyn Museum. If you need a high resolution file, please fill out our online application form (charges apply). For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.
RECORD COMPLETENESS
Not every record you will find here is complete. More information is available for some works than for others, and some entries have been updated more recently. Records are frequently reviewed and revised, and we welcome any additional information you might have.