A female Baule sculpture, region Bouaké, posted on a stool, both of the large hands touching the knees, two small projecting breasts with carved nipples, numerous scarifications on the back, neck and face, the oval head with a small protuding mouth, a fine slender nose, almond-shaped eyes, high arched brows, the pinned-up hairstyle with the two plaits is extremely well crafted; an insect damage on the right upper arm, the sculpture has a fine light brown patina and wears a twisted rope around the waist.

This extremely qualitative sculpture is the work of one of the very few female Baule carvers.

Baule art is valued for its "peaceful concentration," its "introspective reflection" (Vogel, 1997: 28) and for the "classic" criteria of beauty it conveys, thus immediately and obviously appealing to Western sensibilities. The progress of time and advances in the work of researchers and scholars in identifying regional styles has seen certain criteria emerge that allow one to distinguish the rarest and most sculpturally remarkable works amongst the large corpus of Baule figures.

Lit.: Susan M. Vogel: Baule. African Art, Western Eyes, 1997; Bernard de Grunne: Über den Baule-Stil und seine Meister. In: Eberhard Fischer / Lorenz Homberger: Afrikanische Meister. Kunst der Elfenbeinküste, Zurüch 2014, p. 81-106.

sold

Height: 36 cm
Weight: 1,7 kg (incl. stand)