Maternité of the "Agba workshop", around 1920 ·  Côte d'Ivoire, Baule, Agba area, Dimbokro · ID: 3042820

Description

wood, blackish brown patina, pigment remains, narrow head with projecting chin rising from extremely long neck, facial features - eyes with parted upper and lower lids, mouth with philtrum - nearly naturalistically modelled, just like the figures legs, whereby the arms are unnaturally shortened, richly adorned with scarification marks and carved with arm and leg rings, a hole cut between the figure and the seat that permits a real loincloth to be put on it, slightly dam., cracks (breast/navel), abrasion of paint, rep. (breakage: left foot/small toe of the right foot), base.
In 1981 Vogel attributed a mother and child figure from the Paul and Ruth Tishman Collection to a workshop identified by her and located in the Agba area near Dimbokro (Vogel, 1981, p. 74). The workshop seems to have been most prolific and a number of different hands can be discerned among the figures it produced. Because of various characteristic features present sculpture can be attributed to this Agba area workshop (coiffure, scarifications, design of eyes, breasts and navel, leg rings).
A figure which was designated as being from the Agba workshop as well was auctioned as lot 169 at the 85th Tribal Art Auction by Zemanek-Münster.

Comparing literature

Vogel, Susan, For spirits and kings, African Art from the Paul and Ruth Tishman Collection, New York 1981, p. 74 f. Zemanek-Münster, Würzburg, 4 March 2017, lot 169

Publications

AHDRC: 0139784 (comparable object)