Colonial Collection, Brussels

Didier Claes Gallery, Brussels

Jean-Jacques Rotthier Collection (1932–2009), Brussels, then by descent

Among the Yombe, a subgroup of the Kongo peoples, descent is traced through the maternal line, and particular importance is accorded to the female founders of the clans, known as mpemba. The distinctive high caps worn by women are likewise called mphemba, a reference to this ancestral role.

This sculpture represents a female clan progenitor holding her descendant. It belongs to a corpus of related works associated with a Kongo women’s cult centred on fertility and lineage continuity, which flourished between the mid-eighteenth and the mid-nineteenth century. Within this context, women assumed both female and male social and ritual functions, reflecting their central role in the transmission of life, identity, and authority.