Mil 43 cm stacker - Dogon - Mali

Very beautiful bronze statue representing a beautiful woman and her baby carried on her back, proudly in her daily activity of preparing the meal for her family. Resting on a base, the legs semi-bent, she holds in her hands a pestle in a millet mortar, decorated with geometric motifs. The sculpture is depicted with an elongated torso, the buttocks and hips elongated, and conical breasts placed very high at shoulder level. The head presents the entirely typical form of Mali statuary, a “bell” atop a long neck. The face, with geometric features, contrasts the elongated face, dominated by the long nose ending in an arrow point and the eyes set close together in almond shape, with the depth of the head seen in profile, accentuated by the converging lines of the chin and the headdress. A sagittal crest headdress, architectured in chevrons, forms braids that fall laterally and to the back at the level of the neck. The neck is adorned with a necklace made of sculpted amulets. The biceps and wrists are adorned with relief-carved bracelets. Superb bronze, with a beautiful patina and traces of grayish libations from the applications of millet beer and shea butter to which women regularly resorted during cults to maintain this ancestral symbol of femininity.