Primordial Couple, Dogon Tribe, Mali

Details

Description

Offered is a large wood carved male and female seated primordial couple. On the backs of the figures, the male … Read more Offered is a large wood carved male and female seated primordial couple. On the backs of the figures, the male figure has a carved arrow quiver and the female has a baby.

About the piece: The seated couple represents an important conceptual theme in African sculpture. The embodiment portrays the male figure in the role of the hunter-warrior, partnered with the female in the role of mother and nurturer. The ideal social unit is suggested through their interlocking forms; the couple's bond represents continuity of life. Ancestral worship and continuity of the generations is expressed in sexual unity and order in belief that the deceased elder is reborn into the supernatural world, as ancestor and reborn again in a child of the family. Typically, these figures were revered in shrines, treated with great respect as they represented spirits, ancestors, the primordial couple. There is wide range of style, scale, belief and function known of couples sculptures. The representation is timeless and demonstrates a serene equality necessary for the continuity of their societies. Traditionally, figures of this type are individual and freestanding, conceived as a unit, and posed frontally, symmetrically, in formal postures and of equal size.

Masterfully hand-carved, this striking piece is believed to have been made for sale. A stand alone piece or supported by a pedestal, will make an eye catching feature in any room.

Measures: 10 W x 9 D x 28.5 H inches.

Provenance: Dr. William G. Gottfried (N. California estate); avid collector of African, Pre-Columbian, and Ancient Mediterranean art acquired from US galleries over the course of his life.

About the culture: The Dogon, subsistence farmers who hold ancient animist beliefs, are one of central Mali's ethnic groups. In the 15th century, or even earlier, perhaps fleeing a wave of Islamization, they settled along the 100-mile-long Bandiagara Cliffs, which rise just above this village. The Dogon displaced the indigenous Tellem people, who had used caves and cliff dwellings as granaries and burial chambers, a practice the Dogon adopted. They built their villages on the rocky slopes below. Today, the majority of the estimated 500,000 Dogon remain purely animist (the rest are Muslims and Christians), their ancient culture based on a triumvirate of gods. Ritual art—used to connect with the spiritual world through prayer and supplication—can still be found in caves and shrines. Dogon doors and shutters, distinctively carved and embellished with images of crocodiles, bats and sticklike human figures, adorn important village structures.

The villages of Dogon Country are among hundreds of sites across Mali that local people have plundered for cash. The pillaging feeds an insatiable overseas market for Malian antiquities, considered by European, American and Japanese art collectors to be among the finest in Africa. The objects range from the Inland Niger Delta's delicate terra-cotta statuettes—vestiges of three empires that controlled Saharan trade routes to Europe and the Middle East for some 600 years—to Neolithic pottery to the carved wooden doors and human figurines made by the Dogon. See less