A wooden sculpture - Moba - Togo (No reserve price)
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Selected by Dimitri André
Holds a postgraduate degree in African studies and 15 years experience in African art.
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A wooden sculpture by Moba from Bombouaka, Savannah Region, northern Togo, an anthropomorphic ancestor figure 75 cm high and weighing 5.1 kg, in fair condition and original/official, not sold with a stand.
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Description from the seller
Moba Sculpture – Anthropomorphic Ancestor Figure Tchitcheri
Origin: Bombouaka, Savannah Region, Northern Togo
Cultural Classification: Moba
Material: Wood, carved, with a heavily weathered, gray-brown to ochre-colored surface, incl stand.
Dating: Uncertain
Description
This anthropomorphic wooden sculpture from the village of Bombouaka in northern Togo is characterized by an exceptionally elongated, strictly vertical composition and a radically simplified representation of the human body. The upright figure has a large, nearly cylindrical head with a rounded skullcap, resting directly on a narrow neck. The surface of the head is heavily weathered; facial features are not clearly discernible from the perspective shown. Below the head, a narrow, elongated torso develops, its shoulders suggested only by slight sculptural elevations. Two strikingly long, slender arms hang parallel to the torso and end without differentiated hands. The torso tapers to a narrow waist before transitioning into a distinctly pronounced pelvic area. The powerfully sculpted hips form a striking contrast to the slender torso. Below the pelvis extend two long, nearly parallel legs, which taper slightly downwards and end without sculpted feet. The figure stands on a modern, rectangular wooden plinth, which is not part of the original sculpture. The entire surface shows pronounced signs of erosion and material alteration. Deep longitudinal cracks, irregular breaks, and clearly visible wood grain characterize its appearance. Particularly in the area of the head, shoulders, and hips, the original carving is partially obscured by weathering. The grayish-brown to light ochre hue of the wood suggests prolonged exposure to the elements. However, a precise determination of the original display conditions or the age of the figure is not possible based on the photograph.
The entire surface shows pronounced signs of erosion and material alteration.
Cultural and Geographical Context
The Moba are an ethnic group in northern Togo whose historical settlements extend primarily across the present-day savanna region and adjacent areas in southeastern Burkina Faso. The village of Bombouaka is situated in a landscape characterized by savanna vegetation, agricultural use, and a long history of local religious traditions. Within the traditional Moba social order, the relationships between the living, ancestors, and supernatural forces are of fundamental importance. Particularly characteristic of Moba material culture are anthropomorphic wooden figures known as tchitcheri. These sculptures are produced in various sizes and styles and can be associated with familial protection beliefs, ancestral relationships, and ritual practices. Their form is often characterized by a strong reduction of human anatomy. Large, simplified heads, elongated bodies, slender arms, and sturdy legs are among the recurring formal features. Within their original cultural contexts, these figures do not have a purely decorative function. Rather, they can serve as material reference points between the human community and spiritual powers. The precise meaning of an individual sculpture, however, depends on its production, its ritual integration, and its original location. Based on its documented origin and characteristic formal language, the present figure can be convincingly placed within the broader context of Moba tchitcheri.
Symbolism and Ritual Function
The tchitcheri of the Moba are closely linked to concepts of protection, ancestral presence, and the relationship between humans and supernatural forces. Ethnographic literature describes different categories of these figures, whose functions can vary according to size, production, and ritual context. Particularly large figures, often referred to as tchitcheri sakab, are associated with significant familial or genealogical connections. Smaller forms can serve other protective and ritual functions. However, assigning the present sculpture to a specific category would not be reliably possible without measurements and additional ethnographic documentation. The highly simplified human form possesses a particular symbolic quality. The large head could be interpreted as a prominent symbol of identity or spiritual presence, while the elongated legs and upright posture convey steadfastness and stability. The lack of detailed individual features
features make it appear less as a portrait of a specific person than as a supra-individual representation. Within the Moba tradition, the efficacy of such figures may be linked to their ritual activation and their connection to the ancestors. Some chitcheri were placed on family farmsteads or in particularly significant locations. Exposure to sun, rain, and other climatic influences could lead to the gradual alteration of their surface. The pronounced weathering of the present sculpture would be consistent with such use, but it does not prove it. Without information about the original find or placement location, it remains unclear whether the figure was actually outdoors or aged under other conditions.
Art Historical Analysis
From an art historical perspective, the sculpture embodies a particularly consistent form of anthropomorphic abstraction. The human form is reduced to a few basic sculptural elements: head, torso, arms, pelvis, and legs. These elements are not rendered in the sense of naturalistic anatomy, but rather form a strictly vertically organized overall structure. The large head appears as a closed, almost cylindrical form, while the slender torso and long arms create a rhythmic sequence of parallel lines. The distinctly protruding pelvis forms a sculptural focal point within the otherwise slender silhouette. Particularly noteworthy is the relationship between the strong simplification of the body forms and the material vibrancy of the wooden surface. The deep cracks, erosion marks, and irregular breaks create a complex surface texture that contrasts with the original geometric clarity of the figure. These alterations lend the object an additional aesthetic dimension but should not be equated with the original sculptural intention. Within Moba sculpture, the reduction to elementary human forms is one of the characteristic artistic principles. The Tchitcheri often possess a pronounced architectural quality, arising from their proximity to the upright wooden column and their consistent vertical orientation. The present figure displays these qualities in a particularly concentrated way. Its effect is based less on physiognomic expression than on the presence of the entire body in space. The long legs convey stability, while the large head completes the vertical movement of the composition. The slender arms accompany the torso like two additional supporting lines, reinforcing the impression of a closed, upright figure.
Art Historical Assessment
The exceptional artistic quality of this Moba sculpture lies in its radical formal concentration and its impressive material presence. The figure combines a rigorously simplified human form with a surface whose extensive weathering has partially altered the original carving. It is precisely from this tension between geometric clarity and organic material structure that a remarkable aesthetic effect arises. The large, almost featureless head, the elongated torso, and the slender legs lend the sculpture a quiet, monumental aura that is perceptible regardless of its actual dimensions. Within the context of the Tchitcheri tradition of Moba, the object illustrates an artistic conception in which the human form appears not as an individual portrait, but as a concentrated sculptural presence. The possible connection to ancestral beliefs and protective rituals expands its significance beyond purely aesthetic considerations. Precise dating, determination of its original ritual function, and its classification within a specific category of the Tchitcheri remain unclear without further documentation. Nevertheless, the figure represents a characteristic and expressive example of anthropomorphic wood carving from northern Togo.
Literature
Christopher D. Roy: Art and Life in Africa. University of Iowa, Iowa City, 1992.
Piet Meyer: Art and Religion of the Lobi. Museum Rietberg, Zurich, 1981. Comparative literature on religious beliefs and figurative wood carving in the neighboring West African savannah region.
The aforementioned publications serve for general art historical and cultural historical contextualization. They do not constitute direct documentation of the present figure or a definitive determination of its original function.
Copyright and Scientific Documentation
Some of the information and photographs have been generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence and are based on published sources in ethnography, archaeology, and art history. Original texts and photographs may be protected by copyright. All rights held by the respective rights holders are reserved.
Inv. No. MAZ31256
Informant: Ouro
Seller's Story
Wolfgang Jaenicke’s engagement with African art did not begin in the field or the marketplace but in a quieter, more inward space—among papers, books, and objects that belonged to his father. The archive on Germany’s former colonies was not arranged to tell a single story; it suggested many. It invited scrutiny rather than reverence, and it taught Jaenicke early on that objects are never mute. They carry time inside them—fracture and continuity held in the same form—and they ask to be read as carefully as texts.
For more than a quarter century, Jaenicke has worked as a collector, dealer, and intermediary, though none of these terms quite captures the shape of his practice. What used to be grouped, too casually, under the heading of “Tribal Art” has never appeared to him as a sealed or historical category. It is, instead, a set of living traditions, constantly negotiating the present. His academic training—in ethnology, art history, and comparative law—provided a grammar. The language itself he learned elsewhere. In Mali, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Togo, and Ghana, knowledge emerged slowly, through repeated encounters that hardened into relationships, and through trust built not all at once but over years.
Mali became the gravitational center of this experience. Between 2002 and 2012, Jaenicke lived and worked in Bamako and Ségou, where he ran Tribalartforum, a gallery overlooking the Niger River. The space resisted easy chronology. Sculptures and ceramics shared the room with photography, and works by Malick Sidibé—images of Malian youth in the 1970s, self-assured and exuberant—hung alongside older ritual forms. The effect was not nostalgic but clarifying: past and present did not cancel each other out; they sharpened one another.
The war of 2012 ended this chapter abruptly, as wars tend to do. But it did not dissolve the work. Together with Aguibou Kamaté, Jaenicke regrouped in Lomé, closer to the places where many of the objects originated and to the routes they continue to travel. Since 2018, Berlin has become another point on this map. Galerie Wolfgang Jaenicke now operates opposite Charlottenburg Palace, supported by a small team of specialists. Its focus rests, in particular, on West African bronzes and terracottas—materials shaped by earth and fire, and by forms of memory that resist easy translation.
What distinguishes Jaenicke’s practice is not only its geographical range but its internal tension. Fieldwork is paired with provenance research; commerce is treated as inseparable from responsibility. In collaboration with museums and scholarly initiatives, circulation is framed not as extraction but as an ethical process that remains unfinished. The aim is not to remove objects from the world and seal them off, but to keep them readable within it—to allow them to continue speaking, even as the conditions of their speech change.
------------
Galerie Wolfgang Jaenicke is a Berlin-based gallery specializing in West African sculpture, bronzes, terracottas, masks, and contemporary African art. It is directed by Wolfgang Jaenicke, whose work combines collecting, dealing, provenance research, fieldwork, and archival documentation.
According to the gallery’s own account, Jaenicke studied ethnology, art history, and comparative law and has worked in the field of African art for more than twenty-five years. His activities developed through long-term engagement in countries including Mali, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Togo. Rather than presenting African art as a closed historical category, he describes it as a continuing cultural tradition shaped by living communities and changing historical contexts.
A particularly important phase of his career was in Mali, where he lived and worked between roughly 2002 and 2012 in Bamako and Ségou. There he operated Tribalartforum, a gallery that combined historical African sculpture with contemporary African photography, including works by Malick Sidibé. The political and military crisis in Mali in 2012 led to the closure of this phase of activity.
Later, together with Aguibou Kamaté, Jaenicke continued working from Lomé, Togo, before establishing a gallery presence in Berlin near Charlottenburg Palace. The gallery places particular emphasis on West African bronzes, terracottas, Benin and Ife-related works, Nok sculpture, Dogon art, Baule sculpture, Senufo objects, and Yoruba material.
One distinctive aspect of Jaenicke’s public position is his repeated emphasis on provenance transparency and restitution debates. On several published object records, the gallery explicitly discusses issues surrounding export documentation, UNESCO conventions, ownership histories, and communication with scholars and restitution researchers. These statements reflect broader contemporary debates about the circulation of African cultural heritage, legality, collecting history, and museum acquisition practices.
The gallery maintains extensive online archives and catalogues documenting hundreds of African objects, including Benin and Ife bronzes, Nok terracottas, Dogon sculptures, Baule figures, Fon objects, Moba figures, and other West African material.
For researchers interested in the history of the African art trade, Jaenicke represents a later generation of dealers compared with figures such as John J. Klejman. Whereas Klejman belonged to the postwar New York market of the 1950s–1970s, Jaenicke’s work has been shaped by contemporary concerns with field documentation, provenance research, restitution discussions, digital archives, and direct engagement with West African networks and artists.
This text is based on AI Information
Moba Sculpture – Anthropomorphic Ancestor Figure Tchitcheri
Origin: Bombouaka, Savannah Region, Northern Togo
Cultural Classification: Moba
Material: Wood, carved, with a heavily weathered, gray-brown to ochre-colored surface, incl stand.
Dating: Uncertain
Description
This anthropomorphic wooden sculpture from the village of Bombouaka in northern Togo is characterized by an exceptionally elongated, strictly vertical composition and a radically simplified representation of the human body. The upright figure has a large, nearly cylindrical head with a rounded skullcap, resting directly on a narrow neck. The surface of the head is heavily weathered; facial features are not clearly discernible from the perspective shown. Below the head, a narrow, elongated torso develops, its shoulders suggested only by slight sculptural elevations. Two strikingly long, slender arms hang parallel to the torso and end without differentiated hands. The torso tapers to a narrow waist before transitioning into a distinctly pronounced pelvic area. The powerfully sculpted hips form a striking contrast to the slender torso. Below the pelvis extend two long, nearly parallel legs, which taper slightly downwards and end without sculpted feet. The figure stands on a modern, rectangular wooden plinth, which is not part of the original sculpture. The entire surface shows pronounced signs of erosion and material alteration. Deep longitudinal cracks, irregular breaks, and clearly visible wood grain characterize its appearance. Particularly in the area of the head, shoulders, and hips, the original carving is partially obscured by weathering. The grayish-brown to light ochre hue of the wood suggests prolonged exposure to the elements. However, a precise determination of the original display conditions or the age of the figure is not possible based on the photograph.
The entire surface shows pronounced signs of erosion and material alteration.
Cultural and Geographical Context
The Moba are an ethnic group in northern Togo whose historical settlements extend primarily across the present-day savanna region and adjacent areas in southeastern Burkina Faso. The village of Bombouaka is situated in a landscape characterized by savanna vegetation, agricultural use, and a long history of local religious traditions. Within the traditional Moba social order, the relationships between the living, ancestors, and supernatural forces are of fundamental importance. Particularly characteristic of Moba material culture are anthropomorphic wooden figures known as tchitcheri. These sculptures are produced in various sizes and styles and can be associated with familial protection beliefs, ancestral relationships, and ritual practices. Their form is often characterized by a strong reduction of human anatomy. Large, simplified heads, elongated bodies, slender arms, and sturdy legs are among the recurring formal features. Within their original cultural contexts, these figures do not have a purely decorative function. Rather, they can serve as material reference points between the human community and spiritual powers. The precise meaning of an individual sculpture, however, depends on its production, its ritual integration, and its original location. Based on its documented origin and characteristic formal language, the present figure can be convincingly placed within the broader context of Moba tchitcheri.
Symbolism and Ritual Function
The tchitcheri of the Moba are closely linked to concepts of protection, ancestral presence, and the relationship between humans and supernatural forces. Ethnographic literature describes different categories of these figures, whose functions can vary according to size, production, and ritual context. Particularly large figures, often referred to as tchitcheri sakab, are associated with significant familial or genealogical connections. Smaller forms can serve other protective and ritual functions. However, assigning the present sculpture to a specific category would not be reliably possible without measurements and additional ethnographic documentation. The highly simplified human form possesses a particular symbolic quality. The large head could be interpreted as a prominent symbol of identity or spiritual presence, while the elongated legs and upright posture convey steadfastness and stability. The lack of detailed individual features
features make it appear less as a portrait of a specific person than as a supra-individual representation. Within the Moba tradition, the efficacy of such figures may be linked to their ritual activation and their connection to the ancestors. Some chitcheri were placed on family farmsteads or in particularly significant locations. Exposure to sun, rain, and other climatic influences could lead to the gradual alteration of their surface. The pronounced weathering of the present sculpture would be consistent with such use, but it does not prove it. Without information about the original find or placement location, it remains unclear whether the figure was actually outdoors or aged under other conditions.
Art Historical Analysis
From an art historical perspective, the sculpture embodies a particularly consistent form of anthropomorphic abstraction. The human form is reduced to a few basic sculptural elements: head, torso, arms, pelvis, and legs. These elements are not rendered in the sense of naturalistic anatomy, but rather form a strictly vertically organized overall structure. The large head appears as a closed, almost cylindrical form, while the slender torso and long arms create a rhythmic sequence of parallel lines. The distinctly protruding pelvis forms a sculptural focal point within the otherwise slender silhouette. Particularly noteworthy is the relationship between the strong simplification of the body forms and the material vibrancy of the wooden surface. The deep cracks, erosion marks, and irregular breaks create a complex surface texture that contrasts with the original geometric clarity of the figure. These alterations lend the object an additional aesthetic dimension but should not be equated with the original sculptural intention. Within Moba sculpture, the reduction to elementary human forms is one of the characteristic artistic principles. The Tchitcheri often possess a pronounced architectural quality, arising from their proximity to the upright wooden column and their consistent vertical orientation. The present figure displays these qualities in a particularly concentrated way. Its effect is based less on physiognomic expression than on the presence of the entire body in space. The long legs convey stability, while the large head completes the vertical movement of the composition. The slender arms accompany the torso like two additional supporting lines, reinforcing the impression of a closed, upright figure.
Art Historical Assessment
The exceptional artistic quality of this Moba sculpture lies in its radical formal concentration and its impressive material presence. The figure combines a rigorously simplified human form with a surface whose extensive weathering has partially altered the original carving. It is precisely from this tension between geometric clarity and organic material structure that a remarkable aesthetic effect arises. The large, almost featureless head, the elongated torso, and the slender legs lend the sculpture a quiet, monumental aura that is perceptible regardless of its actual dimensions. Within the context of the Tchitcheri tradition of Moba, the object illustrates an artistic conception in which the human form appears not as an individual portrait, but as a concentrated sculptural presence. The possible connection to ancestral beliefs and protective rituals expands its significance beyond purely aesthetic considerations. Precise dating, determination of its original ritual function, and its classification within a specific category of the Tchitcheri remain unclear without further documentation. Nevertheless, the figure represents a characteristic and expressive example of anthropomorphic wood carving from northern Togo.
Literature
Christopher D. Roy: Art and Life in Africa. University of Iowa, Iowa City, 1992.
Piet Meyer: Art and Religion of the Lobi. Museum Rietberg, Zurich, 1981. Comparative literature on religious beliefs and figurative wood carving in the neighboring West African savannah region.
The aforementioned publications serve for general art historical and cultural historical contextualization. They do not constitute direct documentation of the present figure or a definitive determination of its original function.
Copyright and Scientific Documentation
Some of the information and photographs have been generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence and are based on published sources in ethnography, archaeology, and art history. Original texts and photographs may be protected by copyright. All rights held by the respective rights holders are reserved.
Inv. No. MAZ31256
Informant: Ouro
Seller's Story
Wolfgang Jaenicke’s engagement with African art did not begin in the field or the marketplace but in a quieter, more inward space—among papers, books, and objects that belonged to his father. The archive on Germany’s former colonies was not arranged to tell a single story; it suggested many. It invited scrutiny rather than reverence, and it taught Jaenicke early on that objects are never mute. They carry time inside them—fracture and continuity held in the same form—and they ask to be read as carefully as texts.
For more than a quarter century, Jaenicke has worked as a collector, dealer, and intermediary, though none of these terms quite captures the shape of his practice. What used to be grouped, too casually, under the heading of “Tribal Art” has never appeared to him as a sealed or historical category. It is, instead, a set of living traditions, constantly negotiating the present. His academic training—in ethnology, art history, and comparative law—provided a grammar. The language itself he learned elsewhere. In Mali, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Togo, and Ghana, knowledge emerged slowly, through repeated encounters that hardened into relationships, and through trust built not all at once but over years.
Mali became the gravitational center of this experience. Between 2002 and 2012, Jaenicke lived and worked in Bamako and Ségou, where he ran Tribalartforum, a gallery overlooking the Niger River. The space resisted easy chronology. Sculptures and ceramics shared the room with photography, and works by Malick Sidibé—images of Malian youth in the 1970s, self-assured and exuberant—hung alongside older ritual forms. The effect was not nostalgic but clarifying: past and present did not cancel each other out; they sharpened one another.
The war of 2012 ended this chapter abruptly, as wars tend to do. But it did not dissolve the work. Together with Aguibou Kamaté, Jaenicke regrouped in Lomé, closer to the places where many of the objects originated and to the routes they continue to travel. Since 2018, Berlin has become another point on this map. Galerie Wolfgang Jaenicke now operates opposite Charlottenburg Palace, supported by a small team of specialists. Its focus rests, in particular, on West African bronzes and terracottas—materials shaped by earth and fire, and by forms of memory that resist easy translation.
What distinguishes Jaenicke’s practice is not only its geographical range but its internal tension. Fieldwork is paired with provenance research; commerce is treated as inseparable from responsibility. In collaboration with museums and scholarly initiatives, circulation is framed not as extraction but as an ethical process that remains unfinished. The aim is not to remove objects from the world and seal them off, but to keep them readable within it—to allow them to continue speaking, even as the conditions of their speech change.
------------
Galerie Wolfgang Jaenicke is a Berlin-based gallery specializing in West African sculpture, bronzes, terracottas, masks, and contemporary African art. It is directed by Wolfgang Jaenicke, whose work combines collecting, dealing, provenance research, fieldwork, and archival documentation.
According to the gallery’s own account, Jaenicke studied ethnology, art history, and comparative law and has worked in the field of African art for more than twenty-five years. His activities developed through long-term engagement in countries including Mali, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Togo. Rather than presenting African art as a closed historical category, he describes it as a continuing cultural tradition shaped by living communities and changing historical contexts.
A particularly important phase of his career was in Mali, where he lived and worked between roughly 2002 and 2012 in Bamako and Ségou. There he operated Tribalartforum, a gallery that combined historical African sculpture with contemporary African photography, including works by Malick Sidibé. The political and military crisis in Mali in 2012 led to the closure of this phase of activity.
Later, together with Aguibou Kamaté, Jaenicke continued working from Lomé, Togo, before establishing a gallery presence in Berlin near Charlottenburg Palace. The gallery places particular emphasis on West African bronzes, terracottas, Benin and Ife-related works, Nok sculpture, Dogon art, Baule sculpture, Senufo objects, and Yoruba material.
One distinctive aspect of Jaenicke’s public position is his repeated emphasis on provenance transparency and restitution debates. On several published object records, the gallery explicitly discusses issues surrounding export documentation, UNESCO conventions, ownership histories, and communication with scholars and restitution researchers. These statements reflect broader contemporary debates about the circulation of African cultural heritage, legality, collecting history, and museum acquisition practices.
The gallery maintains extensive online archives and catalogues documenting hundreds of African objects, including Benin and Ife bronzes, Nok terracottas, Dogon sculptures, Baule figures, Fon objects, Moba figures, and other West African material.
For researchers interested in the history of the African art trade, Jaenicke represents a later generation of dealers compared with figures such as John J. Klejman. Whereas Klejman belonged to the postwar New York market of the 1950s–1970s, Jaenicke’s work has been shaped by contemporary concerns with field documentation, provenance research, restitution discussions, digital archives, and direct engagement with West African networks and artists.
This text is based on AI Information
Details
Ethnic group/ culture
Moba
Country of Origin
Togo
Material
Wood
Sold with stand
No
Condition
Fair condition
Title of artwork
A wooden sculpture
Height
75 cm
Weight
5.1 kg
Authenticity
Original/official
Sold by
GermanyVerified
protop
Rechtliche Informationen des Verkäufers
- Unternehmen:
- Jaenicke Njoya GmbH
- Repräsentant:
- Wolfgang Jaenicke
- Adresse:
- Jaenicke Njoya GmbH
Klausenerplatz 7
14059 Berlin
GERMANY - Telefonnummer:
- +493033951033
- Email:
- w.jaenicke@jaenicke-njoya.com
- USt-IdNr.:
- DE241193499
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