Africa, from Allegories of the Four Continents 1781 - 1788

This is 'Africa' from the Allegories of the Four Continents, made around 1765-1789 at the Fulda Pottery and Porcelain Manufactory. Here, we see a European depiction of Africa, a woman adorned with an elephant headdress and a lion at her side. These symbols – the elephant, the lion – speak to the exoticism with which Europe viewed the African continent, emphasizing its wildness and untamed nature. This echoes back to ancient Roman depictions of Africa. We see the headdress motif again in other allegorical representations. In Roman mosaics, similar figures evoke the abundance of the Nile, often crowned with vegetation or animal attributes. The gesture of offering fruit from a basket also hearkens back to ancient ideas of fertility and abundance. This symbolic continuity reveals how deeply rooted these motifs are in the collective memory of Western culture, constantly resurfacing and adapting across centuries. They speak to the enduring human fascination with the 'other' and the complex interplay between knowledge, perception, and power.