Fragment of a Male Figure

ca. 500 B.C.E.–200 C.E.

African Art

Medium

Terracotta

Dimensions

18 1/4 × 12 × 8 in. (46.36 × 30.48 × 20.32 cm)

Credit Line

Gift of SusAnna and Joel B. Grae

Accession Number

2010.6.154

Geography
Culture
Classification
Disclaimer

Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.

Provenance

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, 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. (typed letter from Wayne Cancro to Joel B. Grae, July 12, 2004, copy in curatorial file).

Continued research on Sokoto 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 figures from the Grae Collection, which number fifteen in total, has also been unable to confirm which seven were said to have been acquired at that time.

This work appears on our "Antiquities and Archaeological Material with Provenance Documentation Gaps" page.
Bibliography
  • SusAnna Grae, "The Joy and Beauty of Philanthropy," The Good Life (2011), 10, ill.
Object copyright
Additional information

Object/Work type

figures (representations), fragments

Subject

men

Technical metadata and APIs

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