Vessel with human figure

ceramic / terracotta, with engraved signature "Voania Muba", rest.

Voania was the chief of Muba, a Woyo village on the Atlantic coast. He acquired his skills autodidactically, as no pottery was made in Muba or the surrounding area. Voania never left Muba and worked in seclusion. His nephew, Dumu Dioko, transported his vessels to the large regional markets of Boma and Banana, which were only three days' walk from Muba.

Voania did not produce his pottery for local and regional use; instead, he catered to the European preference for figurative ceramics. He created pottery from 1888 at the latest until his death in 1928, mostly depicting Europeans sitting or standing on a spherical vessel.

During his lifetime, Voania's vessels were collected extensively for Western museums. Further works by Voania are published in the exhibition catalogue "Afrikanische Keramik aus der Sammlung Herzog Franz von Bayern", Munich 2019, pp. 237-239.