Finding provenance, seeking context

If one of the aims of art history is to understand better the original meaning of the works studied, then an historical methodology is absolutely essential to the identification and interpretation of precolonial objects. This essay focuses on 16th- and 17th-century ivory carvings identified as ‘Luso-African’. Both the geographical provenance and the ‘ethnic’ or cultural origins of the presumed artists have been mistakenly identified. Geographical terms associated with the Upper Guinea Coast in the 16th century do not correspond to the region these terms are associated with today. Likewise, the term used to identify the culture of the artists, ‘Sapes’, does not correspond to any contemporary group using that designation.The objects are richly documented in late 16th- and 17th-century Portuguese sources. These sources do not claim that only the southern ‘Sapes’ carved ivory. If, therefore, one assumes that some of the works were produced in the northern range of ‘Sape’ occupation, present-day Guinea-Bissau, it then becomes advisable for the art historian to compare these ivories with the rich corpus of wood sculpture made by the groups whose ancestors belonged to or lived adjacent to the northern ‘Sapes’. Paramount among these groups are the Bijogos. Bijogo carving is historically documented to the 17th century. Such comparisons may help understand the symbolism of the saltcellars.