Lamellophone (chisanji)
The thumb piano portrays a wonderfully animated man riding a curious quadruped. His hat suggests he is probably a trader (pombeiro) engaged in long-distance commerce.
Details
- Palette
-
Select a color to find related artworks.
- Medium
- Wood, iron, and wire
- Dimensions
- overall: height 0.191 m, width 0.102 m, depth 0.064 m
- Department
- African Art
- Holding institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Image provider
- cleveland-museum-of-art
- License
- CC0-1.0
- Credit
- The Harold T. Clark Educational Extension Fund
Art Genome Taxonomy
11 tags
Subject Matter
-
Human Figure Visual · 98%
A carved human figure is visibly mounted above the instrument body, with one arm extended forward.
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Animals Both · 97%
The upper carving visibly depicts a four-legged animal, which the catalog describes as the mount of the human figure.
Visual Qualities
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Highly Ornamented Visual · 95%
The object combines a figural crest, repeated rounded border elements, incised bands, and dense carved ornament across its front panel.
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Geometric Visual · 94%
The lower panel contains repeated rectangular compartments, zigzags, concentric circles, and other clearly geometric motifs.
Medium and Techniques
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Carving Visual · 94%
The wooden body and upper figural group are visibly carved, with raised and incised decorative motifs across the front.
Time Periods
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19th Century Art Metadata · 98%
The catalog dates the object to the late 1800s, within the nineteenth century.
Geographic Regions
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African Art Metadata · 99%
The museum classifies the work as African Art and places its possible origin in Central Africa.
Materials
Cultural and Religious Styles
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Traditional African Art Metadata · 86%
The catalog identifies a Chokwe-style maker within a Central African context, supporting a broad traditional-African-art classification without asserting a definitive cultural attribution.
Antiquities, Artifacts, and Religious Objects
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Musical Instrument Both · 99%
The catalog identifies the object as a lamellophone (chisanji), and the image clearly shows a wooden resonating body with numerous projecting metal keys.
Source & rights
Unknown artist. Lamellophone (chisanji). Cleveland Museum of Art.