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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;2manybooks, post: 4138884, member: 8267&quot;]I did email David Spetka, owner of The Niger Bend gallery, who has one of the similar cups without a face. He has given me permission to post his candid and informative reply here. His experience, I believe, is characteristic of how the art trade works in Africa (and other places as well). </p><p><br /></p><p>He writes:</p><p><br /></p><p>You ask for more specific information about the origin of the cup you saw on our website. I have been traveling extensively in Africa for more than 40 years. For most of that time I was concentrating in West Africa and have only begun to spend more time in East Africa in the last few years - the pandemic year notwithstanding. Although I always want to know as much about everything I obtain during my travels it is often difficult to learn as much about an item as I might want to know. My primary focus is to find the most unusual items so that I might distinguish myself in the market by the exclusivity of those items. I look everywhere I can but primarily find what I&#039;m looking for in the possession of dealers with whom I have become acquainted over the years. It is very difficult to find an item in situ as this would require much more time and expenditure than the amount I could ever recover from its sale. Regrettably the dealers who have the items I prefer tend not to know very much about any of their pieces; their interest is just to buy it and sell it. Whenever I attempt to determine more information about the origin of an item they will prevaricate, either because they just don&#039;t know (because they got it from another dealer, who could have gotten it from another dealer) or because they want to keep their sources secret. It is also true that most of the dealers I know simply have no interest in knowing as much about an item as we might want to know. Additionally, because they know that their customers, i.e., myself, will ask these questions they may or may not have an accurate answer. On multiple occasions when I have asked questions of origin and age the answers I got, although fervently delivered, just made no sense. I have come not to put very much credence in what any dealers tell me. </p><p><br /></p><p>The first time I ever saw these cups was in Nairobi in the possession of a dealer I know who is actually based in Kigali, Rwanda. All he told me about them is that they are called Tshi and come from Congo. He knew no more about them than that. I have since seen them in many other places around the areas I have explored in East Africa: Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda. I have yet to venture into Eastern Congo (I was in Kinshasa many years ago) as it is a turbulent area. Ebola is still present there. There is continuing civil strife and just recently a volcano erupted in Goma. The reason so much Congolese material is available in the region outside of Congo is that so many Congolese people are leaving Congo and the surrounding areas are so much more stable. I regret I can give you no more specific information than that.</p><p><br /></p><p>I have never seen any of these same items with human representation or any other designs on them. That&#039;s not to say they don&#039;t exist; I just haven&#039;t seen them. Please send me photos of any items whose authenticity you question and I&#039;ll send them to a friend of mine who might know more. My own inclination is to say that such items may have been made for the trade, obviously a very common phenomenon.</p><p><br /></p><p>If you are interested in our Tshi cups I would be happy to send you photos of others that we have. Not all are yet pictured on our site.</p><p><br /></p><p>All the best,</p><p>David Spetka</p><p>The Niger Bend[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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