African art is a latecomer to the world of collecting, though traditional ethnographic artworks have been sought after on a commercial level for more than a century. Records from the end of the 19th century, including those from London auctions such as Steven’s Auction Rooms or dealer catalogues from Webster and Oldman, show a healthy market for curios and specimens from around the globe.

Prices varied, but the more exotic items such as Jivaro shrunken heads, Benin war booty and South Sea artifacts were often more actively pursued than crude carvings of disproportionately shaped men and women from Africa.

In the early 20th century, a group of artists and like-minded writers and critics "discovered" the arts of Africa, the Pacific and the Americas, and began appreciating them for their visual properties, beyond any historical or anthropological interest. Each geographic area offered broad similarities of artistic form and captured the imagination of groups of artists holding widely different tenets. The Cubists appreciated African sculptures, the Surrealists found fantasy in the arts of the Pacific, the Northwest Coast and the Pueblo Indians, and others, such as the German Expressionists, found inspiration in ethnographic art forms from all these regions. Although many individuals were active in the acquisition and study of these pieces, knowledge of their original use was almost non-existent, and for many inspired people, their ethnicity was much less important than their inherent sculptural qualities. Artworks were often described simply as "art nègre," or in broadly geographic terms like "Congo" or "French Sudan," without any further specific nomenclature. Pieces reflected the vision of the contemporary art of the time, and the most desirable offered the viewer a vocabulary that was easily understood.
 
In the field of African art, a consensus of desirability slowly emerged, with a pricing structure to match. Then, Africa was divided into spheres of European influence, with Britain, France and Germany being the largest colonial powers. Artifacts flowed out of the colonies and into these countries, often quickly entering the marketplace. Since Paris was the center of the early 20th-century art world, those African sculptures that came easily to the various flea markets in and around Paris were the first to interest and excite artistic minds. These artifacts were brought from the French colonies of West and Central Africa: French Sudan, Upper Volta, Ivory Coast, Congo and especially Gabon. While there was a long tradition of collecting weapons and ethnographic material, this period brought a decided interest in masks and figural sculpture. These types of objects were more fascinating to the artistic community as they reflected more fully the human form, which was then undergoing radical reinterpretations.
 
Then as now, money followed art, and French colonial pieces began to be more sought after than those from other regions of Africa. They were better known than pieces from Nigeria and Cameroon, and they had a visual accessibility that made them easier to comprehend. A great emphasis was placed on the plasticity of a sculpture, and the refined execution of the figure is well-represented in art of the French regions. Baule, Senufo, Bamana and in particular Fang sculptures came from these areas and found their way into some of the earliest collections.
 
The sculptor Jacob Epstein was one of the very first to assiduously seek out African pieces rather than acquire chance finds, and he arguably led collectors in a direction that is still followed today. Epstein lived in Paris in the first decade of the 20th century and started collecting at about the same time as Picasso, Vlaminck and Matisse. Collecting was a passion for him and a necessary reassurance of his own artistic abilities. He was determined to have what he considered the best, and became as renowned for his collection of African sculpture as for his own work. He chose from many geographical areas of Africa, and had a goodly number of things from the English regions, such as Benin and Ashanti, but for the most part his collection was from the Francophone countries and included several Dogon and Bamana pieces and numerous Baule statues. However, the centerpiece of his entire holdings was undoubtedly a group of 18 Fang reliquary figures and heads from Gabon. This ensemble, large by any standard, included most of the very finest examples then known. As a trained artist, Epstein knew what to assess in figural sculpture and saw that the forms of the Fang statues were the most elastic and balanced of African sculpture. Fang statuary exhibits tremendous inner strength, muscled into rounded limbs, legs and torsos. The head is always proportionally large, perfecting the wider African sculptural tradition of distortion. The wood surface, anointed with nut oil by generations of guardians, adds a dark depth, further emphasizing the soft volumes.