A male Baule sculpture

A male Baule sculpture, region Bouaké, village Sakassou, Ivory Coast, posted on a base, sitting on a two-legged stool, muscular legs ending in prominent buttocks, wearing a cloth encircling the hips, a slender torso with a pointed navel, emphasized pectoral muscles and nipples, rounded shoulders leading to fragile arms carved close to the body, very elongated hands touching the abdomen, the torso is decorated with linear scarification marks on the front and the backside, an ovoid head with a braided goatee, a pointed round mouth beneath a long nose with a broad tip, round bulging eyes which are bordered all around, further scarification marks on the temples, above the nose and on the neck, oval ears with a prominent tragus, a fine grooved hairline and a sophisticated striated domed coiffure with a ponytail at the back of the head; encrusted brown sacrification patina, traces of age and ritual use, a vertical fracture on the head. Provenance Mr Cabinet Kaba, Ivory Coast.

Lit.: Susan M. Vogel: Baule. African Art, Western Eyes, 1997; Gernard de Grunne: Über den Baule-Stil und seine Meister. In: Eberhard Fischer/Lorenz Homberger: Afrikanische Meister. Kunst der Elfenbeinküste, Zürich 2014, p. 81-106; Alain-Michel Boyer: Baule. Visions of Africa, Milan 2008.

800 - 900,- Euro

Height: 50,5 cm
Weight: 1.3 kg