A seated Baule sculpture, posted on a rectangular blockshaped stool, extermly large hands beneath tapering breasts, a conical neck is supporting an oval head with bulging eyes, white painted eyes and blackened pupils. We hazzard the guess, that this is a late work of the same carver which is pictured in the Rietberg catalogue or coming from a workshop close to this unknown carver.

In the Rietberg-Catalogue of the "Afrikanische Meister" Bernard de Grunne** wrote a contibution about Baule masks and sculptures. On page 92 of this publication he labeled a group of sculptures with the name "Ascher Carver", because a large sculpture of this objects came from the well known Art dealer Ernest Ascher. I have doubt that the pictured figures (plate 106 -112) are coming really from one artist or the same workshop. But on the same time I like to underline that a real comparison needs magnifications of certain details by photoshop to come to a conclusion which has a certain scientific stringency. A couple of weeks ago we found in our house in Segou, Mali, a sculpture, which was collected according of the Meta-informations of the first photos three years ago in Bamako. This sculpture came from the same source like an obviously older piece and is an analogous exemplare of the No. 111 sculpture from a Sothebys auction.

1.400 - 1.800,- Euro

sold

Height: 33 cm
Weight: 2,3 kg