Mangbetu vase - DR Congo (Ingen mindstepris)

EXCEPTIONAL TERRACOTTA MANGBETU VASE - CONGO DRC

In Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda...and as in many other African countries, women are the potters. Men are responsible for extracting and transporting the clay. Everything else falls to the women.

This statuette superbly illustrates Mangbetu art, dedicated to the exaltation of beauty. A few artists—in the village of Niangara and at the court of King Okondo—initiated the tradition of anthropomorphic ceramics, which became one of the most sensitive expressions of Mangbetu art.