Memorial head (nsodie)
This is an idealized portrait of an Akan royal. The Akan states formed in West Africa around the 1400s. Akan royal family members commissioned terracotta portraits like this from female artists during someone’s life. Following their death and burial, the family placed these sculptures in a sacred grove. The woman who sculpted this head over 300 years ago worked from memory, without sketches. The resulting sculpture combined idealized physical qualities of elite figures with individual details. The hairstyle and skin color of this portrait reflect its subject’s individuality. In contrast, hi...
Details
- Palette
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Select a color to find related artworks.
- Medium
- Terracotta
- Dimensions
- overall: height 0.191 m, width 0.136 m, depth 0.155 m
- Department
- African Art
- Holding institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Image provider
- cleveland-museum-of-art
- License
- CC0-1.0
- Credit
- Edwin R. and Harriet Pelton Perkins Memorial Fund
Art Genome Taxonomy
12 tags
Subject Matter
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Portrait Both · 99%
The catalog identifies the work as an idealized portrait, while the image presents a single modeled human head as its subject.
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Individual Portrait Both · 95%
The object is a singular head representing an individual royal subject rather than a group or generic figure.
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Royalty and Aristocracy Metadata · 96%
The Cleveland Museum of Art explicitly describes the subject as an Akan royal.
Visual Qualities
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Patterns Visual · 93%
The coiffure contains repeated incised or modeled motifs that form a conspicuous patterned surface across the crown.
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Earth Tones Visual · 93%
The visible surface is dominated by tan, brown, reddish, and dark earth-related tones.
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Rough Visual · 88%
The sculpture has a visibly granular, uneven, and worn-looking surface texture.
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Symmetrical Visual · 90%
The facial features and ears are arranged with strong bilateral balance, although the modeling and surface are not perfectly regular.
Medium and Techniques
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Sculpture Both · 99%
The museum classifies the work as sculpture, and the image clearly shows a three-dimensional modeled head.
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Frontal Perspective Visual · 96%
The head is presented directly facing the viewer in a centered frontal view.
Geographic Regions
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African Art Metadata · 99%
The museum classifies the work as African Art and gives Ghana as its place of origin.
Materials
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Terracotta Metadata · 99%
The catalog specifies terracotta as the medium.
Antiquities, Artifacts, and Religious Objects
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Funerary/Commemorative Object Metadata · 90%
The title identifies a memorial head, and the catalog explains that comparable portraits were placed in a sacred grove after the subject’s death and burial.
Source & rights
Unknown artist. Memorial head (nsodie). Cleveland Museum of Art.