Ezio Bassani, William B. Fagg, Susan Vogel (Editor)
Africa and the Renaissance: Art in Ivory.
The Center for African Art/Prestel Verlag, 1988. First edition. With an essay by Peter Mark. 0945802013 255 pages.
Large-format volume, measuring approximately 9.5" x 12.5", is bound in black cloth, with stamped silver lettering to spine. Book is like new. Dust jacket shows light shelfwear and is preserved in mylar cover.
"The earliest objects from Black Africa to reach European collections were ivories brought from West Africa to Portugal in the last years of the 15th century. Records of import duties paid at Lisbon for the year 1504-05 show that on eighteen occasions in the course of that year alone sailors and merchants returning from the coast of West Africa paid taxes on ivory spoons and "saleiros", or saltcellars.
Between 1490 and 1600 African artists working for European patrons carved exquisite ivory saltcellars, hunting horns, spoons and other commissions for the royal households of Europe. The ivories' exotic origin, together with their exquisite craftsmanship and precious material, made them worthy gifts to persons of importance. In 1500, an Afro-Portuguese ivory hunting horn bearing the arms of Castile, Aragon, and Portugal was given as a wedding gift to a daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella.
This is the earliest instance of cross-cultural interaction between Europeans and West Africans and it produced a series of remarkable works of art. These works crystallize an important historical event and express the first impressions Africans had of Europeans before the large scale slave trade, the industrial revolution and colonial rule distorted relations between them.
Portuguese who came to the ivory workshops in Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and the Congo brought models of hunting scenes, coats of arms, decorative motifs and chalice shapes. African artists, already skilled carvers of wood, stone, and ivory, interpreted these in their own style, and added their own motifs to produce a new, highly original art in ivory.
"Africa and the Renaissance" retraces the African and European sources of ivories, and interprets these works of art as documents of the first contact. The objects reveal the sophistication of Africans in the 15th and 16th centuries, and correct the misconception that Africa was devoid of history and culture, closed to the outside world until the colonial era."