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Bonnet

Ca. 1840

Not on view

This embroidered cloth cap was purchased in the early 1840s in Senegal or the Gambia by the nineteenth-century humanitarian Victor Schœlcher. As president of the French commission on the abolition of slavery, Schœlcher was responsible for the decree, signed on April 27, 1848, that definitively put an end to slavery in France and its colonies. Over the course of his travels relating to advocacy, he assembled a collection of hundreds of objects that he documented extensively and donated to French institutions at the end of his life. Beyond their unusually early collection date, no specific information about these textiles has been retained.

Bonnet, Cotton, dye, Mande peoples — This image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.

Title: Bonnet

Date: Ca. 1840

Geography: The Gambia

Culture: Mande peoples

Medium: Cotton, dye

Dimensions: W. 9 7/16 × D. 3/8 × L. 11 13/16 in. (24 × 1 × 30 cm)

Classification: Textiles-Costumes-Accessories

Credit Line: Musée du Quai Branly–Jacques Chirac, Paris (71.1886.9.21)

The Met

The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing at The Met

The Met's collection of art of the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa, the Pacific Islands, and North, Central, and South America comprises more than eleven thousand works of art of varied materials and types, representing diverse cultural traditions from as early as 3000 B.C.E. to the present.