spoon
- Museum number
- Af1856,0623.163
- Title
-
Object: Afro-Portuguese ivories
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Object: Sapi-Portuguese ivories
- Description
-
Ivory spoon, carved in single piece. Stem of handle decorated along length with raised circles alternating with blank lines. Figure of blunt-tailed crocodile in high relief along handle. Top of handle surmounted by openwork polyhedron. Central section of handle has figure of eight loop with high relief figures of two snakes on either side. Bowl is broad, tapeirng leaf-shape, very thin. Joined to handle at pronounced angle. Ivory discoloured to yellow on back of spoon. Bowl of spoon at back has painted number and other inked numbers: '07/-68' (?).
- Production date
- 1490-1530
- Dimensions
-
Height: 24 centimetres
-
Width: 4 centimetres
-
Depth: 2.80 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- Read & Dalton 1899:
Ivory spoon with bowl of elegant outline. The handle is a bar carved in openwork to represent "a figure of 8" knot, upon which are three snakes in relief. A lizard is extended on the straight part of the handle, which terminates in an openwork polyhedron.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
1991-1992 Oct-Jan, Washington DC, National Gallery of Art, Circa 1492: Art in the Age of Exploration
1997-1998 Sep-Jan, Osaka, National Museum of Ethnology, Images of Other Cultures
1998, Feb-Apr, Tokyo, Setagaya Art Museum, Images of Other Cultures
2007-2008 Bristol, Empire and Commonwealth Museum, Slavery, Abolition and the Making of Modern Britain
2007 23 Jun-16 Sep, USA, Washington DC, Freer Gallery of Art & Arthur M Sackler Gallery, Encompassing the Globe: Portugal and the World in the 16th and 17th Centuries
2007 27 Oct-2008 3 Feb, Belgium, Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Encompassing the Globe: Portugal and the World in the 16th and 17th Centuries
2017-2018 07 December - 25 February, Moscow, Kremlin Museums, Lords of the Ocean: Treasures of the Portugese Empire in 16th - 18th Centuries.
- Condition
- Good. Discoloured to dark yellow on back of spoon. Tiny chips from sides of bowl. Some minor surface scratches to bowl (inside) and dirty marks on outside.
- Acquisition date
- 1856
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- Af1856,0623.163
