Figure masculine assise
Description
wood, pigments, plant fibres, glass beads, rest., base
This extremely beautiful figure sits in a stately pose on an Akan-style stool. He exudes great calm and dependability. The beard is considered a symbol of wisdom. It may be the depiction of a fortune teller (cf. Vogel, 1997, p. 31).
With regard to sitting posture, braided natural hair beard and the naturalistic treatment of the eyes with dark-coloured pupils, it shows striking stylistic similarities with a figure from the Aaron Furman Gallery, New York (1958), which was exhibited at TEFAF in 2016 by Bernard de Grunne (AHDRC 0058701 ). De Grunne assigned this figure, along with a number of other sculptures, to an artist he called the “Vérité” master (cf. De Grunne, “On the Baule Style and its Masters, in: Fischer & Homberger, 2014, pp. 98 ff.). Susan Mullin Vogel adds a figure from the Barnes Foundation to this group (cf. Clarke, 2015, pp. 122 f.,18d). However, she considers the figures to be “a greater number of related sculptures that were probably made by several different hands over a couple of decades”.
The present figure shows a close proximity to the sculpture from the Barnes Foundation, which was acquired from Paul Guillaume (1891-1934) in the 1920s, and a figure that was already in the collection of the Fauvist painter Maurice de Vlaminck (1876- 1958) (AHDRC 0058462).
Both are early figures with whom our figure shares physical similarities, such as the broad, rounded shoulders with the distinctive flattened areas below the collarbone. Viewed in profile, the flatness of the facial features catches the eye, the beautiful swing of the long crested hairstyles, as well as the very similar proportions and shapes of the upper bodies.