African Arts Gallery

Stirrup of loom Baule, Baoule (N° 20130)

Aesthetics of the everyday for the African art of Ivory Coast.
In the Ivory Coast, the most ordinary objects had to meet aesthetic criteria. Furniture, ornaments, utensils, fabrics, are pretext for a refined artistic expression on the part of the sculptors. The technique of cotton weaving spread to West Africa thanks to the movements of the Dioulas. Before colonization, textiles made of cotton fiber, the latter 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.
This is a pulley stirrup decorated with a carved figure "waka sona". The piece is surmounted by a statuette in the round, seated in meditation. 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. Shaded brown patina. Ref : "Africa, the hands of the world" J.Anquetil