A Dogon healing sculpture, Mali, Bandiagara plateau, standing on a wooden base, knees slightly bent, large genitalia, hands resting on the hips. very thin protruding stomach and abdomen, what appears to be large shoulder blades, no trace of a neck and the small helmet shaped head composed of expressive features, flat bulbous lips, pointed nose and rounded eyes; the sculpture is covered in thick incrusted patina, some cracks, signs of use.

“In Dogon society, sculptures that were used to petition higher powers for sustenance and new life have historically been the creations of professional blacksmiths. Each village typically has several families that specialize in smithing. Mystical powers allow them to deploy earth, air, and fire to make the iron tools upon which agriculture, and thus society at large, depend. The voluminous corpus of sculptural works they produce in cast metal and carved wood, while richly diverse, often emphasizes a graphic, angular definition of the human figure.” Source: The MET

"Paradoxically, the art of [the Dogon people...] is closer in spirit to modern sculpture than almost anything else in Africa. The plasticity of the greatest Dogon carvings must be compared – in quality as well as nature – with that of Brancusi or (the Cubist) Lipchitz. I say 'paradoxically' because (except for possible rare stray pieces) Dogon sculpture was unknown to that pioneer generation of twentieth century modernists (except in some cases at the end of their careers). One cannot but imagine how the Brancusi or Lipchitz (or, for that matter, the Picasso or Matisse) of 1915 would have savored the great Dogon pieces we know today. How much more than most of the African material then at hand these sculptures would have confirmed those modernists in the daring solutions they were undertaking."

Lit.: Hélène Leloup, Dogon Statuary, publisher Daniele Amez, 1994; Primitivism In 20 th Century Art, The Museum of Modern Art, publisher William Rubin, 1984: 

sold

Height: 76 cm
Weight: 3,6 kg