Hunt scenes adorn ancient carved-ivory horn from Africa

Tethered by a heavy chain, a fierce hunting dog strains to pull free and chase a stag it sees standing nearby in the forest. Horn-blowing huntsmen follow the hunt. The dogs corner the stag, allowing one of the hunters to kill it with a spear.

This Renaissance-era hunting scene, carved in elaborate relief on a 15th-century hunting horn of African ivory, once served as a prestigious gift to royalty in Renaissance Europe.

Inscriptions and heraldic designs on the horn—which include coats of arms for both Portugal and Spain—have led experts to believe the horn was given by Portuguese King Emmanuel I to Ferdinand V of Spain as a symbol of solidarity. It may have marked the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas between the two countries, or it may have celebrated one of two royal marriages of King Emmanuel I to daughters of King Ferdinand—either Isabella in 1497 or, after her death, Maria in 1500.

Made in what is now Sierra Leone, West Africa, by a master ivory carver, this horn is one of 525 pieces in the Walt Disney-Tishman African Art Collection—one of the finest collections of traditional African art in the world. The collection was donated last year to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art by the Walt Disney World Co.

"This horn, one of a number of Afro-Portuguese ivories, speaks to an early history of trade and interaction along the West African coast," explains Christine Mullen Kreamer, a curator at the African Art Museum. Made for export, these objects were commissioned as prestigious gifts by Portuguese explorers and commercial agents who traded along the West African coast from the late 15th century to the end of the 16th century.

"By commissioning such an important and complex piece, the Portuguese were acknowledging the artistry and technical expertise of the people they called the Sapi," Kreamer adds. The Sapi were the ancestors of present-day Bullom, Kissi, Temne and Baga peoples in what is now Sierra Leone and Guinea.

"Two high-relief figures, each with an animal draped across his shoulders, suggest the Good Shepherd, a reference to Christ and to the fact that Portugal and Spain were, at that time, Catholic countries," Kreamer says. "However, in a departure from Christian imagery, each figure carries a spear, and the animal is not a lamb but an unidentifiable creature that appears to have been killed in the hunt."

This unusual object is one of only three hunting horns, along with two powder flasks, that are attributed to an unknown West African artist known to art historians as the Master of the Arms of Castile and Aragon.