This sculpture of a mother holding a small child, whose body conceals a bowl, was a luxurious embellishment for a simple gourd that held sacred white chalk, possibly at the entrance to a chief’s home. It is similar in appearance to seven other sculptures likely made by the same artist, Kitwa Biseke, whose work was photographed in the Nkulu chieftainship in Shaba province of what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the 1920s or 1930s. The woman’s cowrie-shell-shaped eyes, with full circles ringing her nearly closed lids, the sharp angles of her shoulders, and her abstract, shortened legs with small struts supporting the bowl all link this piece to Biseke’s workshop, while the hairstyle and the scarification patterns on the torso are classic fashions across the Luba kingdom. Kitwa means “a chief’s personal woodcarver,” and Biseke worked for chief Nkulu; for this reason, it is possible that the sculpture was made for Nkulu to use himself or give as a gift. Chief Nkulu would have expected guests to daub themselves with chalk from a small gourd placed in the bowl of this sculpture, charmingly topped by the child’s head, as a sign of respect before greeting him. The chalk, associated with the shining whiteness of the moon and the spiritual world of the ancestors, invoked blessings.




During the nineteenth century, the strength and wealth of Luba kings led to an increase in royal commissions. But through taxation, occupation, and forced labor, the Belgian colonial government compromised local political structures throughout the Congo in the early twentieth century, eroding patronage for royal arts. At the same time, Protestant missionaries in this region sought to convert local leaders, and to have them burn artworks perceived as “fetishes.” Biseke completed this artwork at a time of intense social change, when traditional patronage was on the decline.

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