Purloined Provenances: Reflections on Authority and Authenticity in African Art

Abstract

ABSTRACTRecent studies of specific African artworks have enriched our understanding of their social biographies, the network of relationships the art objects forged as they travelled through time and space. Such studies have also raised important questions concerning the roles of European galleries and collectors in the construction of provenance. For example, research into the social lives of individual statues created in the Lagoon region of Côte d'Ivoire uncovered repeated examples of information that was erased or altered when the artwork left its community of origin and was acquired by a dealer in 20th century France; several of these case studies are presented here. This essay argues that by suppressing information concerning a statue's former life on the African continent, merchants dealing in Tribal Art could replace its history with their own narratives, and could substitute the aesthetic tastes of an African community with their own expertise. It also suggests that Africanist art historians were influenced by European art dealers and their commercial practices, which privileged a form of connoisseurship based on formal analysis and close physical examination over historical documentation.