Provenance

Reportedly private collection, United States; reportedly sold to Wayne E. Cancro, New Jersey, 1981; possibly sold to SusAnna and Joel B. Grae, New York and Peekskill, New York, by June 11, 2004; given to the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn., 2010

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Correspondence provided by the donors suggests that around seventy ancient terracotta and stone statues from Africa, including from Sokoto, and Katsina, Nigeria, were purchased from Wayne Cancro (typed letter from Wayne Cancro to Joel Grae, June 11, 2004, copy in curatorial file), and that they had been purchased by Cancro from a private collector in the United States in 1981. Additional correspondence provided by the donors suggests that the collector was civil rights activist, Bayard Rustin (1912–1987), and that the purchase included seven Sokoto statues, and six Katsina statues. (typed letter from Wayne Cancro to Joel B. Grae, July 12, 2004, copy in curatorial file).

Continued research on Sokoto and Katsina figures from the Grae Collection and on the life and collection of Bayard Rustin has been unable to corroborate this ownership history. Continued research on Sokoto and Katsina figures from the Grae Collection, which number twenty-three in total, has also been unable to confirm which thirteen were said to have been acquired at that time.

This work appears on our "Antiquities and Archaeological Material with Provenance Documentation Gaps" page.