A female Senufo Guardian or Déblé sculpture, Ivory Coast, standing on a tall cylindrical base with a snail winding around, slender slightly bent legs, the abstract elongated torso is decorated on the front and the backside with oval thick scarification marks, also at the navel and above the pointed breasts, wearing a loincloth, flatened shoulders, the arms are each surrounded by two carved bangles, the hands clenched to fists are held in the height of the hips, on the long and slender neck with a ring and a necklace around it rests a round head framed by a domed coiffure which consists of several different parts arranged around the head and a crest on the top, an open protruding mouth, the nose is very long and round at the tip, the eyes are round and protruding, the fascial plane with its fine stylized features shows a high degree of abstraction; fine greyish surface, signs of cultic use in particular at the base, heavy, hard wood.

Lit.: Burkhard Gottschalk, Senufo. Massa und die Statuen des Poro, 2002; Staatliche Museen der Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Museum für Völkerkunde Berlin, Die Kunst der Senufo, Elfenbeinküste. Mit einem Beitrag von Till Förster, 1990; Museum Rietberg Zürich, Die Kunst der Senufo aus Schweizer Sammlungen, 1988; Susan Elizabeth Gagliardi, Senufo unbound. Dynamics of art and identity in West Africa, Cleveland 2015.

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Height: 114 cm
Weight: 5,3 kg