Flamboyant and ominous, a long bodied leopard reinforced the enormous power wielded by those who serve Bamileke kings. Beaded triangular patterns, said to evoke the spots of a leopard, were worn with complex indigo-dyed garments and leopard pelts. Seeing them costumed and moving en masse offers a dazzling display of a kingdom's wealth and investment in ritual control.
Cloth, wood, beads, twine, string
13 7/16 x 6 in. (34.1 x 15.3 cm)
L.: 48 in.
Gift of Katherine White and the Boeing Company
81.17.700
Now on view at the
Seattle Art Museum
Resources
Exhibition HistoryLos Angeles, California, Frederick S. Wight Art Gallery, University of California, African Art in Motion: Icon and Act, Jan. 20 - Mar. 17, 1974 (Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, May 5 - Sept. 22, 1974). Text by Robert Farris Thompson. No cat. no., pp. 142, 228, reproduced pls. 181 (as python headdress), VI (color).
Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Praise Poems: The Katherine White Collection, July 29 - Sept. 29, 1984 (Washington, D.C., National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Oct. 31, 1984 - Feb. 25, 1985; Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art, Apr. 6 - May 19, 1985; Fort Worth, Texas, Kimbell Art Museum, Sept. 7 - Nov. 25, 1985; Kansas City, Missouri, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Mar. 8 - Apr. 20, 1986). Text by Pamela McClusky. Cat. no. 45, pp. 98-99, reproduced (as Leopard/python headdress).
Bellevue, Washington, Bellevue Art Museum, The Ubiquitous Bead, Sept. 5 - Oct. 25, 1987.
Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.
