African Art

Zairian artist Pilipili Mulongoy's Pintades (Guineafowls), painted about 1950, offers a brilliant example of early African art. Glass beads and cowrie shells deorate a rare, late-19th-century, life-size figure from the Bamun peoples of Cameroon, in western Africa. The figure may portray a high-ranking Bamum man in a posture of constraint and subservience to his king.