Male-female couple ·  Nigeria, Igbo · ID: 3049241

Description

wood, black paint,

According to Cole, some of the same sculptors who carved conventionalized cult images in nothwestern areas of Igbo country also made secular “dance emblems” for display and prestige puposes.

These include large idealized couples, figures of beautiful women “ugonachomma,” as well as elaborately designed “dance emblems”.

These works were commissioned by the various age-grades for competitive and festive dance displays. Based on a photograph taken by Missionary Basden in the early 1930s, these images were paraded through public dance arenas. They served as identifying emblems of the age-grades and as objects of prestige.

Due to its smaller dimensions, this pair of figures could have once crowned a dance emblem, like the one published in Cole, 1984, p. 110, ill. 208.

Comparing literature

Cole, Herbert M. & Chike C. Aniakor, Igbo Arts, Los Angeles 1984, p. 107 ff.