Carved Wooden Leopard
This carved wooden leopard is a work of art from the Kingdom of Benin, in present day Nigeria. Within the beliefs of the Kingdom of Benin, leopards were important animals.
This photo was taken on 14 September 1935. Antoinette (Tony) is on her knees in the doorway of her tent, beside her camp bed. Her journal entry for this day refers briefly to “ticketed curios” which probably means recording and numbering the objects.
She had been collecting objects with the help of some of the local men they employed as guides and bearers. They let it be known among their family and friends that Tony was interested in buying things, and local community members brought items to the camp for her to buy.
The camp was somewhere close to a game reserve, probably what is today the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park. Their shooting permit restricted them to hunting outside the reserve areas so they had to be careful not to stray into the unfenced land. The Park is the oldest nature reserve in Africa, established in 1895.