Clan Emblem, losa
DR Congo, Mbole People
20th century
Plant fiber (wicker, raffia?), organic dyes (chalk, soot, clay), float weave
53.5 x 36 cm (21 x 14 1/4 inches)
Professionally mounted and framed (wood frame)
Losa, the woven clan emblems of the Mbole people, are patterned with abstract symbols that visually encode the names, totems and ancestral histories of the matrilineal clans and sub-clans, which have their own meeting houses and emblems. The designs are usually geometric but this unusual and finely crafted example seemingly portrays a stylized human figure.
Published: 1986, George Meurant, Art Kuba (Credit Communal, Brussels 1986), p. 2
$850
