African Arts Gallery

Aesthetics of everyday life for African art from the Ivory Coast. The angular stirrup, decorated with geometric motifs, is surmounted by a character holding his long beard. The protruding joints, rendered in a very realistic manner, are masterfully carved.
The figurative motifs of these pulleys are very diverse: cephalomorphic or zoomorphic among the Baule and Gouro, while the Senufo frequently decorated them with hornbill figures. Dark brown granular patina.
In Ivory Coast, the most ordinary objects had to meet aesthetic criteria. Furniture, ornaments, utensils, fabrics, are a pretext for refined artistic expression on the part of sculptors. The technique of cotton weaving spread to West Africa thanks to the movements of the Dioulas. Before colonization, textiles made of cotton fiber, described as "white gold", were also used as currency. Prestigious ornaments, the woven ceremonial loincloths, sometimes in large numbers, accompanied the chiefs to their graves, among the Kuba, but also among the Baule.
Ref : "Africa, the hands of the world" J.Anquetil