A Dan ceremonial spoon with anthropomorphic features, called also Wakemia or Wunkirmian, Ivory Coast/Liberia, wedge-shaped feet with grooved toes, the ankles encircled by rings, the sturdy legs slightly spread apart and bent, the thighs with leaf-shaped grooved decoration, protruding, almost disks-like knees, accentuated genitals, prominent buttocks, at the center of the ladle, a fluted narrow form connects handle to bowl, the bowl covered with a striated and linear grooved decoration; blackened patina, traces of age and ritual use, damaged on the left leg, incl. stand.

"These ceremonial ladles (...) are badges of prestige acknowledging an individual woman for her incomparable generosity. Oversized (they can measure up to two feet), they are not so much utilitarian objects as symbols of status and the bearer of spiritual powers. Quality of craftsmanship and complexity of design are constitutive of the work’s importance."

"In 1926, a young Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) reinterpreted the Dan equation between a woman’s womb and the bowl of a spoon in his sculpture Spoon Woman (Femme Cuillère). Like many artists of his generation, he was familiar with and admired the bold reinterpretations of the human body imagined and expressed by artists from West and Central Africa that had begun to fill the Parisian artists’ ateliers during the first decade of the 20th century. In this life-size bronze sculpture, considered among his earliest mature works, the artist uses the premise established by Dan carvers as a point of departure, but pushes the form further towards geometric abstraction."

Lit.: The Met: Ceremonial Ladle (Wakemia or Wunkirmian) 19th–mid-20th century; Eberhard Fischer and Hans Himmelheber: The Arts of the Dan in West Africa, Museum Rietberg, Zürich, 1984; Eberhard Fischer: Dan Artists: The Sculptors Tame, Si, Tompieme and Sõn- Their Personalities and Work, Zurich, 2014; E. Fischer/H. Himmelheber: Spoons of the Dan (Liberia/Ivory Coast), Looking-Serving-Eating-Emblems of Abundance. Homberger, L., ed. Zurich 1991: Museum Rietberg; Ernst Winizki: Afrikanische Löffel: African Spoons. Zurich: Museum Rietberg; B. C. Johnson: Seeking a Name: Four Dan Sculptors of Liberia. San Francisco 1984.

sold

Height: 41.5 cm
Weight: 800 g (incl. stand)