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Heddle Pulley (bird)
c. 1935
Maker Unknown
African Art
Heddle Pulley (bird), c. 1935. Africa, West Africa, Côte d’Ivoire, Baule-style carver. Wood and metal; overall: 21.6 cm (8 1/2 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Katherine C. White 1973.219 The heddle pulley, a working element of a narrow-band loom, bears a miniature sculpture. Heddle pulleys support and separate threads during weaving. Mounted above the weaver, the pulleys allow him to glance up at an object of inspiring beauty, rather than pure functionality. This pully depicts a slender-beaked hornbill reaching toward its belly and may allude to fertility. Besides inspiring weavers, these publicly visible miniature sculptures reportedly acted as “advertisements” for carvers in parts of West Africa. There are eleven species of hornbills in Côte d'Ivoire, where this bird-topped pulley was carved.
- Maker/Artist
- Maker Unknown
- Classification
- Implements
- Formatted Medium
- Wood and metal
- Dimensions
- Overall: 21.6 cm (8 1/2 in.)
- Departments
- African Art
- Accession Number
- 1973.219
- Credit Line
- Gift of Katherine C. White
- Exhibitions
- Year in Review: 1973, Stories From Storage, CMA 1968: "African Tribal Images: The Katherine White Reswick Collection," cat. no. 76, repr.<br>CMA 1974: "Year in Review 1973," CMA Bulletin LXI Feb., 1974), p. 73, no. 15, repr. p. 70.
- Rights Statement
- Copyrighted
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