Figure

20th century

Three beads adorn this tiny standing sculpture known by the name of mbulenga, meaning "for beauty, for luck." Often used in medicinal treatments, the sculpture was rubbed with red earth and white chalk to assure healthy protection for a mother and her child. The largest bead is actually a miniature basket, and may represent the container which would hold ingredients used in healing. Bena Lulua figures have a unique way of stacking zones of the body into place, and this example is well detailed despite its small size.

Wood, fiber, shell, reed, bead, and cloth

2 3/8 x 7/8 x 7/8 in. (6 x 2.25 x 2.25 cm)

Gift of Katherine White and the Boeing Company

81.17.833

Not currently on view

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., p. 57, reproduced pl. 65 (as standing figure).

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, A Bead Quiz, July 1, 2008 - July 1, 2009.

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.

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