Hair ornament

Tiny refined hair ornaments are abundant, catching many an eye as they, like the women who wore them, beamed in the light. As part of a well-executed performance of sañse, a woman’s gleaming jewelry reminds observers that she was not only well respected and beautiful, but had the means and the social networks to carry off such a display of splendor.

Gold-plated silver alloy semicircular or horseshoe shaped hair ornament with a rectangular top, decorated in granulation surmounting circles of wire, and twisted and untwisted wire around the edges and inside the horseshoe design. The back is hammered metal with a single pierced hole for air release or for sewing into the hair. The top rectangular bar has a hole pierced through it to allow for being attached to hair or a cord.

Marian Johnson, purchased in Dakar, Senegal, 1963-late 20th century to 2012

Good As Gold: Fashioning Senegalese Women, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., October 24, 2018-February 2, 2020; North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, September 16, 2020-January 3, 2021

African Mosaic: Selections from the Permanent Collection, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., November 19, 2013–August 12, 2019 (installed February 13, 2015-August 1, 2017)

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