Object Details
- Description
- Portrait of “Sisi Nurse” (born Mokobia, married into Da Silva family), a seated woman in a yellowish-green full-length dress with white smock-collar and three-quarter length sleeves with white trim. Positioned against a deep brown backdrop, she faces forward, looking out directly from the canvas. She wears a gold bracelet at each wrist, a gold pendant on a long chain around her neck, and an ornament in her hair, which is parted at the center and appears to be pulled back in a bun. The painting is signed and dated.
- Provenance
- Sisi Nurse (born Mokobia, married into Da Silva family)
- by descent to Emido Louis Akinola Dami Luv
- by descent to Florence Abimbola Oladapo (née Da Silva)
- by descent to Oladapo Olatunde, Surulere, Lagos
- sold to Kavita Chellaram, ArtHouse, Lagos
- Published References
- Nelson, Steven. 2017. “The Image of the Black in Modern and Contemporary African Art,” The Image of the Black in African and Asian Art eds. David Bindman, Suzanne Preston Blier, and Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press): 169.
- Okeke-Agulu, Chika. 2015. Postcolonial modernism: Art and Decolonization in Twentieth Century Nigeria (Durham, NC: Duke University Press): 46.
- Content Statement
- As part of our commitment to accessibility and transparency, the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art is placing its collection records online. Please note that some records are incomplete (missing image or content descriptions) and others reflect out-of-date language or systems of thought regarding how to engage with and discuss cultural heritage and the specifics of individual artworks. If you see content requiring immediate action, we will do our best to address it in a timely manner. Please email nmafacuratorial@si.edu if you have any questions.
- Image Requests
- High resolution digital images are not available for some objects. For publication quality photography and permissions, please contact the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives at https://africa.si.edu/research/eliot-elisofon-photographic-archives/
- Data Source
- National Museum of African Art
- Maker
- Aina Onabolu, 1882 - 1963, Nigeria
- Date
- 1922
- Credit Line
- Museum purchase
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- Stretcher: 63.3 × 39.7 cm (24 15/16 × 15 5/8 in.)
- Type
- Painting
