Duende Art Projects

Technique: Ivory Coast Early 20th century Wood PROVENANCE Private Collection, 1978 Galerie Wolfgang Ketterer, Munich, 6 May 1978. Lot 157. Private Collection, 1979 Christie’s, London, “Tribal Art”, 3 April 1979. Lot 145. Arcade Gallery/Wengraf, London, UK, 1979 Private collection, Belgium, 2011 Bernaerts, Antwerp, 20 October 2011. Lot 62. Private Collection, Antwerp, Belgium

Size: 33 x 0 cm

Authenticity: Certificate provided

Edition: Unique work

Price: € 6.000

Status: for sale

Female Spirit Spouse Figure

A ‘wife from the other world’ (blolo bla). Every Baule lived with such a spirit spouse; his was blolo bla, hers blolo bian (male). When diviners suspected the spirit spouse of causing personal problems (often sexual), the affected individual had to commission a statue for the jealous spirit. That figure needed to be beautiful to avoid further offence; hence, the classic ideal of Baule beauty of these statues: smooth skin; long neck; sophisticated coiffure; raised scarifications on the temples, the neck, the back and the chest; and a torso well-proportioned to the muscular calves and buttocks. Although similar in facture, statues of spirit spouses are generally smaller than those of the equally anthropomorphic asye usu, owned by Baule diviners.