Yaka Cup Congo Rohner Collection

The Yaka people, numbering approximately 300,000, reside along the Kwango River in the southwestern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They share their territory with various neighboring ethnic groups, including the Kongo, Teke, Zombo, Nkanu, Suku, Pindi, Mbala, Hugann, Holo, and Chokwe. The Yaka are renowned for their highly developed artistic sensibilities, which imbue even everyday objects with a sense of beauty and drama. Their art is distinguished by its ability to convey a profound sense of spirituality and ritual, with an aesthetic that blends abstraction with vivid symbolic meaning.

Provenance: John R. Rohner Collection
Rohner, a museum curator for decades, aimed his practiced eye for authenticity to African art beginning in the early 1980s. His passion for this art only grew through the decades he built his collection––always with an aim for a broad and representative array of pieces. The collection appears in his book, Art Treasures from African Runners (2000, University Press of Colorado). 

Item #568 on pg. 218

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