Snuff Kerrie
- Medium
- Wood and metal
- Dimensions
- D.: 64.5 cm (25 7/16 in.); DIMs of object on mount. : 42 × 8.9 × 64.8 cm (16 1/2 × 3 1/2 × 25 1/2 in.)
- Genre
- decorative arts
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago
Styles
Tags
pipenguniEastern and Southern Africawood (plant material)african Artarts of Africasouth africandecorative arts
About
This snuff kerrie combines a knobkerrie, a short staff with a domed ball-head that could serve as a club inhunting or combat, and a container for powdered tobacco to be used as snuff. Enhanced with human and animal features, the work has a velvety smooth, honey-colored surface. This fusion of two practical utensils into one finely carved wooden object is an excellent example of the ingenuity that characterizes work by artists in 19th-century southern Africa.
