Fine and Rare Igbo Female Figure, Nigeria
Fine and Rare Igbo Female Figure, Nigeria
Wood, pigments, beads, encrustations
Height 26 1/2in (67.3cm)
Provenance
Peter and Lauri Pollack Collection, Chicago
Private Collection
Cf. Cole, Herbert and Chike Aniakor, Igbo Arts: Community and Cosmos, Museum of Cultural History, Los Angeles, University of California, 1984, fig. 209, for a similar figure, possibly by the same hand, with the same elaborate, mask-like headdress and hairstyle.
Cole notes (Ibid, footnote to fig. 209), "Female figure, possibly a display carving, but if so, anomalous in that tradition because of the age of the woman depicted, her elaborate headdress, and the hand-held objects (now broken off). Collection Alain and Rosemarie Dufour, Paris."
Finely carved in naturalistic form, wearing a complex and elaborate headdress with openwork design; her eyes slightly downcast, naturalistic nose and broad lips; the angle of the downward-sloping shoulders balance the angle to the headdress above; the arms bent at the elbows with implements in each hand border her torso with downward pointed breasts and enhanced umbilicus; wearing a skirt with parallel rib design that ends just above her lower legs which are now lost; fine dark and light brown patina with pigment and encrustations.
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Fine and Rare Igbo Female Figure, Nigeria
Wood, pigments, beads, encrustations
Height 26 1/2in (67.3cm)
Provenance
Peter and Lauri Pollack Collection, Chicago
Private Collection
Cf. Cole, Herbert and Chike Aniakor, Igbo Arts: Community and Cosmos, Museum of Cultural History, Los Angeles, University of California, 1984, fig. 209, for a similar figure, possibly by the same hand, with the same elaborate, mask-like headdress and hairstyle.
Cole notes (Ibid, footnote to fig. 209), "Female figure, possibly a display carving, but if so, anomalous in that tradition because of the age of the woman depicted, her elaborate headdress, and the hand-held objects (now broken off). Collection Alain and Rosemarie Dufour, Paris."
Finely carved in naturalistic form, wearing a complex and elaborate headdress with openwork design; her eyes slightly downcast, naturalistic nose and broad lips; the angle of the downward-sloping shoulders balance the angle to the headdress above; the arms bent at the elbows with implements in each hand border her torso with downward pointed breasts and enhanced umbilicus; wearing a skirt with parallel rib design that ends just above her lower legs which are now lost; fine dark and light brown patina with pigment and encrustations.