Maternité of the Agba area workshop, around 1920
Lange was an art historian and published several books on Egyptian art and historical coins. Besides of only a few African art objects he mainly collected Egyptian art.
Description
wood, brown patina, traces of black paint, red pigment, sitting on elaborate stool and carrying a child on the back, large head with beautiful profile, extremely elongated legs nearly naturistically modelled, just like the eyes with parted upper and lower lids, richly adorned with scarification marks and carved with leg rings, a hole cut between the figure and the seat that permits a real loincloth to be put on it (according to S. Vogel this is found on older sculptures and later was replaced by a carved loincloth), slightly dam., minor missing part backside, fine crack (forehead), abrasion of paint (nose, mouth), rep. (breakage: right thigh);
in 1981 S. 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). An early sculpture from this workshop was published by Paul S. Wingert in 1948, a sitting female sculpture, which had been acquired by Vincent Price in 1937.
The function of this figure - as a spirit spouse “blolo bla” or as a nature spirit “asie usu” can no longer be determined. Mother figures in general should encourage fertility and successful births and they should symbolize the continuity of the lineage by female powers. Baule classification for sculptures such as this is “waka sona”, literally “person of wood”.This sculpture would be appreciated for its aesthetic qualities, with phrases such as “o e fe” (“it is pleasing”).