A Losso bone couple, Northern Togo, with simplistic features and patterns carved on the surface. Signs of ritual use and age. The Losso people, based in northern Togo, are a relatively small ethnic group whose artistic and ritual practices have remained largely outside the mainstream of African art history. Among the rare and most compelling aspects of their material culture are their bone sculptures—small, often austere objects used in spiritual and ritual contexts. These works are notable for their unusual choice of material and their deep symbolic resonance. Unlike the more common wood or metal sculptures found in West African traditions, Losso bone sculptures are carved from human or animal bone and sometimes incorporate additional materials such as fiber, iron, or clay. These objects are not made for public display but are created for private, often secretive ritual use, linked to healing, divination, and the invocation of ancestral spirits. The use of bone is not incidental; it is believed to carry the essence or life force of the being it once formed, making it an active medium in the communication with the spiritual world. What makes these sculptures particularly powerful is their restraint. They are often minimal in form, abstract, and roughly finished, which enhances their emotional and symbolic intensity. Rather than decorative or narrative, they are functional in a metaphysical sense—tools for spiritual mediation and transformation. Their appearance reflects their purpose: they are not designed to please the eye, but to serve a role in sacred processes. Pierre Amrouche, a French collector and expert in African art, has played a significant role in bringing international attention to these obscure and mysterious objects. His appreciation of Losso bone sculptures is rooted in their spiritual depth and visual rawness. He has described them as works of raw metaphysics—objects that bypass conventional beauty to express something more elemental and existential. For Amrouche, these sculptures resonate with the concerns of both traditional African spirituality and the minimalist tendencies of modern Western art. Amrouche's advocacy has helped reframe these bone figures not simply as ethnographic artifacts, but as powerful statements within the larger context of global sculpture. Their visual austerity and spiritual charge have been compared to modernist sculpture in the West, especially works that seek to strip form down to its essence in order to access something timeless or sacred. In this light, Losso bone sculptures represent a fusion of ritual function and sculptural presence. They offer insight into a worldview where objects are not passive decorations but active agents in maintaining balance between the physical and spiritual realms. Through figures like Pierre Amrouche, these works have entered broader conversations about the nature of art, spirit, and material, making them both culturally specific and universally resonant.Amrouche, Pierre Author, Parcours des Mondes Published in conjunction with the exhibition, "Corps & Dècors, Statuaire Lamba et Losso du Togo," Parcours des Mondes, Paris, September 2008; Espace Berggruen, Paris, September-October 2008. -- Colophon, AFA copy 39088018925362 purchased with funds from the S. Dillon Ripley Endowment. MAZ08058 Height: 18 cm / 18 cm Weight: 200 g / 180 g