Cleveland art museum gets 35 Congolese sculptures

Associated Press

CLEVELAND

The Cleveland Museum of Art is getting 35 pieces of 19th- and 20th-century Congolese sculpture from the collection of a Belgian art lover and her late husband.

The acquisition announced this weekend, which includes three rare male “power figures” and a bronze crucifix from the 19th century, greatly improves the quality of the museum’s African collection, The Plain Dealer in Cleveland reported Saturday.

The museum didn’t offer a dollar amount for the deal but said it was partly a donation by Odette Delenne of Brussels, who collected the pieces with her late husband, Rene Delenne, from the late 1950s to the late 1970s.

Many of the sculptures are new to scholars and the public because they have not been exhibited or included in publication, according to the newspaper.

The museum plans to feature the Delenne collection in an exhibition in the spring of 2013.