A female Baule figure, Ivory Coast, placed on an oval base, knees slightly bent, both hands touching the stomach, the elongated torso is mounted by a thick cylindric neck who carries a large oval head. The features are calm, relaxed, eyes bulging out, the hairdo is pulled back fand forms a ponytail. The figure is covered with scarifications on her body, face, neck stomach and back - sign of beauty and status in Baule culture; some wear throughout the sculpture, sign of use. 

“To articulate historians, the most consistent features of Baule art is a kind of peaceful containment. Faces tend to have downcast eyes and figures most often hold their ams against the body. […] Among their abundant art forms, the Baule people continue to place the greatest value on masks and figure sculptures, which remain the only sculptural art still widely used in Baule villages. While there is a difference between the Baule view of their objects and that of Western connoisseurs, there are points of agreement. Aesthetic appreciation is one: Baule artist, and individual owners of objects, certainly sometimes enjoy the beauty of these objects and the skill it took coproduce them. […] Ornaments above the face are chosen for their beauty and have no iconographic significance” p.141.

Lit: Baule: African Art, Western Eyes. Susan M.Vogel 1997.

Further literature:
The Contemporary Arts Museum in the Cullinan Hall of the Museum of Fine Arts of Houston, Totems not
Taboo, Houston, 1959
The Museum of Primitive Art, African Sculpture from the Collection of Jay C. Lef, New York, 1964, cat. no. 6
Vogel, Susan, The Art of Collecting African Art, New York: The Center for African Art, 1988: 59
Vogel, Susan, Baule: African Art, Western Eyes, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997, p. 230
Fogel, J., La collection d’art de Côte d’Ivoire de Brian et Diane Leyden, Tribal Art, 2012, vol. XVI, no. 65, p. 115,fg. 4.
Neyt, François, Trésors de Côte d'Ivoire, Brussells: Fonds Mercator, 2014, p. 258, no. 185.

sold

Height: 43,5 cm
Weight: 340 g