The Authenticity of African Sculptures

by Henri Kamer

The issue of authenticity of African art has been central to collectors for decades.  Henri Kamer, who was president of the International Arts Experts Association at the time, published an outstanding account of the state of the matter in Artes d'Afrique Noire, No. 12 (1974).  The text  that follows is extracted from an English translation of that article, and has been edited further.  The original includes a number of illustrations.  They are not included here because I believe the text suffices without them. 

The original version, including the illustrations, in French and with the English translation, is 

 profession Commissaire-priseur
Christie's

Christie's est une société de vente aux enchères de renommée mondiale basée à Londres au Royaume-Uni. Elle a été fondée le 5 décembre 1766 par James Christie.

Christie's a rapidement acquis la réputation de mener à bien les plus grandes ventes aux enchères du XVIIIe siècle et XIXe siècle. Durant cette période, Christie's a régulièrement vendu aux enchères (pour des montants significatifs) l'héritage national de Grande-Bretagne et du Royaume-Uni, incluant des objets confiés par des membres de l'aristocratie et même de la Famille Royale britannique.

Plus récemment, Christie's a vendu aux enchères des œuvres d'art et des objets personnels liés à des figures historiques comme Pablo Picasso, Rembrandt, Diana, Princesse de Galles, Léonard de Vinci, Vincent Van Gogh, Napoléon Bonaparte... En 1998, Christie's vendit à New York le fameux palimpseste d'Archimède après la fin du procès pendant lequel il fut discuté de la propriété du dit objet.

Coté en bourse à Londres de 1973 à 1999, Christie's est devenue en 1995 la première société internationale de ventes aux enchères à exposer des œuvres d'art à Pékin. Christie's est le grand rival de Sotheby's pour la prééminence mondiale en matière de ventes aux enchères

The Nok civilization

The Nok civilization was discovered recently, in 1943 a fragment of a terracotta statue was unearthed in a tin mine near Nok on the Jos Plateau in central Nigeria. Following the discovery of other pieces of statues of high artistic quality were found near the city of Sokoto and creates lots of reactions when they appeared on the market of Western art. Since that date the statues from the city of Katsina still in northern Nigeria have been discovered, but like most of these magnificent statues excavated from unregulated very little information has reached us about their functions.

Several styles of terracotta statues were identified all dated between 400 BC and 200 AD there is currently very difficult to know if these styles correspond to different traditions or they are just regional variations.
More statues of styles, differences were found in the same regions, such as a number of terracotta-called classical style have been discovered in the region of Katsina to three hundred kilometers from their cultural center: the town of Nok.
It is likely that future research will give us more information on what is currently one of the great mysteries of African art.

The classical style known as Nok terracotta, includes statues of real size, with large elongated heads , hair forms developed and we identified them especially thanks to the eyes of an eyebrow and upper linear lower curve of an eyebrow, Their body is usually decorated with many jewels in terracotta, reminiscent of beads stones otherwise similar to those that were found during excavations.

This is a copy of the catalogue of the exhibition of 1923 in Brooklyn Museum, In 1903 Stewart Culin became the founding curator of the department of ethnology at the museum of the Brooklyn institute of arts and sciences, now the Brooklyn museum Culin a self taught ethnologist built the foundation of four curatorial collections for the museum, acquiring objects representing African Asian native American and estaern European culture

Culin was among the first curator to recognize museum installation as an art form, he was also among the first to display ethnological as art objects, not as ethnographic specimens. This approach is evidenced in his exhibition “primitive negro art”

The exhibition opened in april 1923 and displayed African objects he had acquired in Europe from dealers. Along with his colleagues Culin set the parameters for cultural representation in museum through his collection decisions and innovative installations.

[ See the continuation... ]

This is a copy of the catalogue of the exhibition of 1923 in Brooklyn Museum, In 1903 Stewart Culin became the founding curator of the department of ethnology at the museum of the Brooklyn institute of arts and sciences, now the Brooklyn museum Culin a self taught ethnologist built the foundation of four curatorial collections for the museum, acquiring objects representing African Asian native American and estaern European culture

Culin was among the first curator to recognize museum installation as an art form, he was also among the first to display ethnological as art objects, not as ethnographic specimens. This approach is evidenced in his exhibition “primitive negro art”

The exhibition opened in april 1923 and displayed African objects he had acquired in Europe from dealers. Along with his colleagues Culin set the parameters for cultural representation in museum through his collection decisions and innovative installations.

See the continuation... ]

The Age of Jazz

exhibition poster's century jazz


Garden Gallery

exhibition ticket or ticket matched

March 17 to June 28, 2009


Commissioner Daniel Soutif

Jazz, along with film and rock, one of the major artistic events of the twentieth century. This hybrid music marked the global culture of its sounds and rhythms.

The exhibition, designed by the philosopher and art critic Daniel Soutif, presented in chronological relations between jazz and graphic arts throughout the twentieth century.

From painting to photography, from cinema to literature, not to mention the graphic or comic book, the exhibition shows more particularly the development of jazz in Europe and France in the 30 and 40.


e route of exposure

Life, 1 July 1926 (FG Cooper, 1926) © Collection Philippe Baudoin
Life, 1 July 1926 (FG Cooper, 1926) © Collection Philippe Baudoin

The exhibition is divided into ten chronological sections connected by a "timeline", vertical window through which the exhibition will bring together works, objects and documents, scores illustrated posters, records and folders, pictures ... entrusted to evoke directly the main events in the history of jazz.

This structured timeline by year is the common thread of

Jacques Kerchache, portraits croisés

At a glance the Other


History of European eyes on Africa, America and Oceania

At a glance, and one devoted to successive visions brought by Europeans on the cultures of Africa, the Americas and Oceania. This program is a pretext to put into perspective by thematic series, the relativity of our eyes on the threshold of a new museum. Rather than return to the past, this catalog (and exhibition which is the source) marks a starting point.

From the Renaissance to today, the "idols of the Indians", "instruments of the natives," "primitive fetishes," "Negro Sculpture" or "first arts" were the witnesses of likes and dislikes, revealing reflections on otherness. The originality of this publication reflects historical depth that allows to include these objects in a broader history of art.

The Musée du Quai Branly appealed not only to works of other cultures, reflecting the first contacts with Europe, but also to European works within the midst of which they were placed. The catalog shows as well, in a strange series of chapters, how European eyes have gradually allowed other creations from, for example, curiosity amazed rankings systematic evolutionary wanderings of the images of the Universal.

Throughout the pages, the reader travels with the Nave of Charles V., Écouen treasure museum, portraits of Indians of Brazil painted in 1637 for the palace of the Prince of Nassau, rhinoceros horn cups Habsburg Pre-Columbian