a Fine Mangbetu Prestige Knife
Fine Mangbetu Prestige Knife
Mangbetu
Haut - Uele District, Orientale Province, Belgian Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Early 20th century (ca. 1920)
Steel, elephant ivory
Blade: 11,4cm
Hilt & Blade: 18,4cm
Hilt, Blade, Sheath: -cm
Collection Date: 2022
Ex. Auctions Imperial: Chatsworth, California, USA (2022)
Ex. Harry Wagner Collection: Columbus, Ohio, USA Collection (2021)
Exhibited at the University of Central Missouri, McClure Archives Musuem, Art & Identity: January 11 - March 18, 2016. Cat No. 9.26.1
Exhibited at the University of Central Missouri, McClure Archives Musuem, Eternal Ancestors: January 13 - March 1, 2014. Cat No. 9.26.1
Exhibited at the University of Central Missouri, McClure Archives Musuem, Masquerade: Selected Works from Western and Central Africa, January - February 2012. Cat No. 9.26.1
Exhibited at the University of Central Missouri, McClure Archives Musuem, Masquerade: Selected Works from Western and Central Africa, January - February 2010. Cat No. 9.26.1
Ex. Werner Cocquyt: Gent, Blegium (Vanhoutte Family Collection)
Ex. Van Acker Family Collection:Gent, Belgium (1950s)
Small prestige knife of the Mangbetu. Simple double- edge steel blade tapering to a point. There is an accession number “9.26.1” on the base of the blade on one side. Elephant ivory carved hilt.
The knife was originally collected by the Van Acker Family in the Belgian Congo during the 1950's. The Van Acker Family were engineers, geologists, and doctors by profession who practiced in the Congo for three generations. The most renowned of the lineage was Eugéne Van Acker, an engineer sent by Leopold II to the Congo in the 1890s who assisted in the construction of the railroad between Leopoldville and Matadi. His son Paul, born in Belgium in 1898, traveled to the Congo to search for diamond and gold deposits. He created an independent mining company in the Congo, the failure of which resulted in his return to Belgium in 1929 (Lempertz, 2019). Accompanied with provenance records of Masquerade Tribal Arts Exhibition history and exhibition paper.