Spoon; Leso la legong
Item
Title
Spoon; Leso la legong
Creator
Unrecorded
Description
Physical Description: Carved wooden spoon with handle in the form of a giraffe, decorated with poker work to create dark markings representing the giraffe's hide.
Contextual Description: Spoon, Tswana, South Africa or Botswana. Carved in the form of a giraffe. The British Museum has several similar spoons in its collection, including some that were acquired prior to 1865 by Henry Christy. British Museum Af1979,01.5169 (provenance unknown) is closely related to the present spoon. Darkened with pokerwork [Catherine Elliot, May 2016, RPMT collections database]
Publisher
Making African Connections
Type
PhysicalObject
Format
Whole: 470 mm x 35 mm x 55 mm
Wood
Identifier
AF109
Source
Acquired by the museum in 1881 from Samuel Joseph Woodham Smith, along with five other Southern African spoons which are labelled 'J C Penfold Esq'. John Croucher Penfold was a Brighton solicitor who died in 1880. The Ledger was written in 1890 and records objects given to the museum in previous years. This acquisition was recorded as being 'before 1890', then corrected to 1881.
The British Museum has several similar spoons in its collection, including some that were acquired prior to 1865 by Henry Christy. British Museum Af1979,01.5169 (provenance unknown) is closely related to the present spoon.
The British Museum has several similar spoons in its collection, including some that were acquired prior to 1865 by Henry Christy. British Museum Af1979,01.5169 (provenance unknown) is closely related to the present spoon.
John Croucher Penfold
Pre 1881
Space/Place
Botswana, Southern Africa, Africa
Cultural Group: Tswana
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International