The historical stocks of the African collection are composed of various different fields of collections. A smaller part belonged to the Senckenberg Natural History Society that was founded in 1917 in Frankfurt and collected materials as well as ethnographic objects from all over the world. Numerous objects were acquired by the museum from two other societies typical of the 19 th Century: the Anthropological and the Colonial Societies. From the start the museum established its own collection coming from persons of different social backgrounds: missionaries, colonial officials, diplomats, merchants, doctors, botanists, zoologists, etc. but explicitly commissioned explorers were also enlisted. In this way contributed: Herzog (Duke) Adolf Friedrich zu Mecklenburg who from 1910 to 1911 travelled the frontier areas of then German colony Cameroon; Fritz and Wilhelm Jaspert who in 1927/1928 acquired a small valuable collection from different ethnic groups in Central Angola; and, during the 1930s, Hans Himmelheber, a doctor, who brought home various important objects from the Ivory Coast. And last but not least, Leo Frobenius´Africa Archives included collections that were transformed to the museum when, in 1935, Frobenius was appointed its director. During the Second World War an extensive part of the African Collection, especially from among its large sculptures, was destroyed. Today, this ethnographic collection contains about 14.000 items from African traditional arts and cultures.
The Main geographical focus of the ethnographic collection is on the areas of Central Africa (Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Rwanda) and North Eastern and Eastern Africa (Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Uganda, Kenya). Historically important objects from Nigeria and South Africa are also part of the collection.
This anthropomorphic male figure, nearly lifesize, is from Kom, a kingdom of the Cameroonian savannah. It came, in 1904, into the possession of the museum thanks to missionary Reinhold Rohde, and is one of the most valuable objects of the collection.
Such thrones composed of a figure were not intended to recall a particular rulers´s personality but represented an ideal royal figure symbolizing the continuity and power of the dynasty. But no one is allowed – not even the king – to use the protruding seat because it is exclusively brought into play during the ceremonial enthronement of a new king when after an one-year seclusion he eventually presented himself for the first time to the public.
Objects made of bronze from the former kingdom of Benin (Nigeria) are among the most valuable and coveted works of African art. Having been „discovered“ in February 1897 on the occasion of a british punitive expedition against the then ruler of Benin, Oba Ovoranmwen, several thousand objects made of bronze and ivory reached Britain where they were auctioned off fort he belated financing of the undertaking. The objects caused a sensation and the ethnological discipline ran out of arguments to explain them: many of the metal objects are technically of a superb quality and might easily keep up with the works of the Renaissance artist Benvenuto Vellini (1500 – 1571), showing a naturalistic or idealizing style. But his style was deemed untypical of traditional African art. For a long time „Benin Bronze“ were denied an indigenous „African origin“, and experts assumed instead, for instance, that their creators were among the Portuguese who reached the kingdom of Benin at the end of the 15 th century.
The relief plaque presente her is an ornamental element of the architecture of the royal palace showing a high-ranking dignitary.
en zu nennen.
In the early 19 th century, at the height of its power, the Ashanti kindom extended over the territory of the present Republic of Ghana including, moreover, the adjancent parts of the Republics of Togo and Ivory Coast. The carved stools belonged to the most valuable and prestigious objects of the royal household and covered a wide spectrum of forms: each king of the Ashanti endeavoured to own a stool with a new design especially made for himself. The Museum of World Cultures has such a prestigious object from the first half of the 19 th century in its collections containing, thus, one of the oldest known exemplars of a stool of this kind. On December 22, 1838, a certain Mr. Degen, inhabitant of Rio de Janeiro, had given this stool as a gift to the the Senckenberg Natural History Society. According to the pattern it´s a woman´s stool presented at marriage by the future husband to the bride.
Since 1974 works of contemporary art are being added to the ethnographic collection meanwhile comprising 2.800 items, and it is therefore the largest body of modern African art to be found in the ethnographic museums of German speaking countries.
As an example you may see here a work of the Kenyan artist Rosemary Namuli Karuga.
