Michael Schwartz Library
The African art collection at the Cleveland Museum of Art contains about 250 works. The collection's focus is on masks and figures from West and Central Africa, mostly carved in wood. The collection also contains works made from a variety of other materials, including ivory, copper alloys, gold, fibers, beads, animal skins, and earthenware. While most of these objects were made in the late 19th or early 20th century, two fragmentary terracotta figures, one from Nigeria, the other from Mali, date back to 500 BC and AD 1000, respectively, thus shedding light on the continent's ancient cultural history.