Carved Yoruba Narrative Door With Painted Finish

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This is a door that gets people talking the moment they notice it: two of its carved figures are riding … Read more This is a door that gets people talking the moment they notice it: two of its carved figures are riding bicycles, mid-pedal, wheels and all. It comes from the Ekiti/Osi-Ilorin region of Nigeria, home to a Yoruba carving tradition well-regarded enough to have work in the British Museum's permanent collection, carvers who used narrative doors like this one to comment on the colonial world arriving around them. The carved face is organized into four registers bordered by a rope-twist band, musicians and attendants in one row, the bicycle riders in another, an animal flanked by its handlers in another, the ochre, red, and black pigment worn thin in places from real age and handling.
The reverse is plain, sun-weathered, and pivots on its own extended stile rather than applied hardware, honest evidence of how it actually hung and swung for decades. At 27 inches wide and 54 inches tall, it's compact enough to anchor a gallery wall or hang solo above a console, with enough color and narrative detail to reward a guest who steps in for a closer look. Hang it where conversation happens, an entry, a bar, a reading corner, and let people find the bicycles themselves.

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