A wooden sculpture - Prampram - Ghana
03
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20
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€ 88
Reserve price not met
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Selected by Dimitri André
Holds a postgraduate degree in African studies and 15 years experience in African art.
Estimate € 900 - € 1,000
 | €88 | |
|---|---|---|
 | €85 | |
| €82 | |
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Original wooden sculpture from Prampram, Ghana, depicting a very tall, slender anthropomorphic figure; 153 cm high, 6.4 kg, sold with stand.
AI-assisted summary
Description from the seller
Sculpture of a very slender anthropomorphic figure, Prampram
Origin: Southern region, Ghana
Material: Darker wood, with a mineral pigment and a clay coating; longitudinal cracks.
Description
The sculpture depicts an extremely tall figure, apparently carved from a single block of wood. An ovoid head, almost devoid of modeling, rests on a very slender cylindrical neck, which extends into a long, narrow, and slightly curved torso. At its base, the torso divides into two tapered legs, without distinct feet. The arms, which are exceptionally long, are separated from the torso by narrow recesses and extend down to near the thighs; the hands are not individually defined. The face consists solely of two eye holes, a vertical nasal ridge in shallow relief, and a small indentation indicating the mouth. A series of circular holes also appears on the chest and abdomen. Their relatively regular arrangement suggests that some may have been intentionally drilled, while others may result from attacks by wood-boring insects or material loss. The surface is covered with an irregular, worn, light beige-gray layer, revealing darker wood in places. This could be a clay coating, a mineral pigment, a whitewash, or successive deposits, though the photograph does not allow for a definitive conclusion. Longitudinal cracks, small gaps, and abrasions are evidence of the material's aging. The rectangular reddish-wood base and the metal rod attached to one leg are modern display additions and are not part of the original work.
Historical and Artistic Analysis
The sculptural power of this object lies in a radical reduction of the human body. The sculptor seeks neither an individual portrait nor naturalistic anatomy: he constructs a presence through frontality, verticality, and elongation. The voluminous head serves as the primary focal point, while the neck, arms, and legs transform the body into an architecture of continuous lines. The absence of hair, clothing, adornments, and sexual attributes diverts attention away from personal identity toward a generic, silent, and enduring representation of humanity. This economy of means can be cautiously compared to the minimalist aesthetic that Nii Otokunor Quarcoopome observes in certain Dangme arts associated with altars and the expression of religious power: symbolic effectiveness may depend on austerity, restraint, and formal concentration rather than on abundant decoration. This parallel, however, remains contextual; it does not establish either the exact origin or the date of the object. Without a collection history, measurements, material analysis, and historical photography, no precise dating is scientifically defensible.
Scientifically Grounded Description
The scientific study should include standardized photography in visible and oblique light, X-ray or CT scanning, wood identification, and analysis of the light-colored layer. X-ray examinations could reveal internal cracks, any repairs, and the depth of the perforations. XRF, Raman spectroscopy, FTIR, and microscopy would allow for the detection of kaolin, clay, calcite, gypsum, organic binders, or modern materials. These methods are commonly used in conservation to characterize pigments, woods, internal structures, and restorations. Identifying the wood species through wood anatomy or microchemical analysis would provide more precise documentation of the raw material. The Smithsonian notes that combining anatomical and chemical methods can be particularly useful for woods used in African art. Microscopic examination of the edges of the holes would also help distinguish between intentional drill holes, insect galleries, and recent alterations.
Ritual Function
The exact function of this sculpture cannot be deduced from its appearance alone. In Dangme traditions, public altars serve as spiritual anchor points, emblems of ancestral authority, and markers of clan identity. Their significance may link a visible presence to religious content that is secret or reserved for priests and elders. Hugo Huber also describes rites of purification and pacification performed on shrines and certain sacred objects. This information lends credence to the hypothesis that the figure was once housed in a family or community shrine. It may have embodied an ancestral or spiritual presence, protected a family, a lineage, or a place of worship, or been the recipient of libations, coatings, and ritual renewals. However, this evidence does not allow for its formal identification as a specific ancestor, a deity, a funerary object, or an initiation figure. Recent sales catalogs report that several comparable sculptures attributed to Prampram may have belonged to shrines and may have been coated with successive layers of pigments or ritual substances. These accounts of provenance are useful for guiding research, but they do not replace an independent ethnographic investigation conducted within the communities in question.
Selected Bibliography
Cole, Herbert M., and Doran H. Ross. *The Arts of Ghana*. Los Angeles: Museum of Cultural History, University of California, 1977.
Huber, Hugo. *The Krobo: Traditional Social and Religious Life of a West African People*. St. Augustin: Anthropos Institute, 1963.
Huber, Hugo. "Adangme Purification and Pacification Rituals (West Africa)." Anthropos, vol. 53, 1958, pp. 161–191.
Quarcoopome, Nii Otokunor. "Thresholds and Thrones: Morphology and Symbolism of Dangme Public Altars." *Journal of Religion in Africa*, vol. 24, no. 4, 1994, pp. 339–357.
Quarcoopome, Nii Otokunor. *Rituals and Regalia of Power: Art and Politics Among the Dangme and Ewe, 1800 to Present*. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1993
The publications mentioned serve for comparative art historical classification. They do not establish the specific cultural attribution, dating, or original use of the sculpture in question.
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 copyright holders are reserved.
Inv. No. MAZ30880
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
Sculpture of a very slender anthropomorphic figure, Prampram
Origin: Southern region, Ghana
Material: Darker wood, with a mineral pigment and a clay coating; longitudinal cracks.
Description
The sculpture depicts an extremely tall figure, apparently carved from a single block of wood. An ovoid head, almost devoid of modeling, rests on a very slender cylindrical neck, which extends into a long, narrow, and slightly curved torso. At its base, the torso divides into two tapered legs, without distinct feet. The arms, which are exceptionally long, are separated from the torso by narrow recesses and extend down to near the thighs; the hands are not individually defined. The face consists solely of two eye holes, a vertical nasal ridge in shallow relief, and a small indentation indicating the mouth. A series of circular holes also appears on the chest and abdomen. Their relatively regular arrangement suggests that some may have been intentionally drilled, while others may result from attacks by wood-boring insects or material loss. The surface is covered with an irregular, worn, light beige-gray layer, revealing darker wood in places. This could be a clay coating, a mineral pigment, a whitewash, or successive deposits, though the photograph does not allow for a definitive conclusion. Longitudinal cracks, small gaps, and abrasions are evidence of the material's aging. The rectangular reddish-wood base and the metal rod attached to one leg are modern display additions and are not part of the original work.
Historical and Artistic Analysis
The sculptural power of this object lies in a radical reduction of the human body. The sculptor seeks neither an individual portrait nor naturalistic anatomy: he constructs a presence through frontality, verticality, and elongation. The voluminous head serves as the primary focal point, while the neck, arms, and legs transform the body into an architecture of continuous lines. The absence of hair, clothing, adornments, and sexual attributes diverts attention away from personal identity toward a generic, silent, and enduring representation of humanity. This economy of means can be cautiously compared to the minimalist aesthetic that Nii Otokunor Quarcoopome observes in certain Dangme arts associated with altars and the expression of religious power: symbolic effectiveness may depend on austerity, restraint, and formal concentration rather than on abundant decoration. This parallel, however, remains contextual; it does not establish either the exact origin or the date of the object. Without a collection history, measurements, material analysis, and historical photography, no precise dating is scientifically defensible.
Scientifically Grounded Description
The scientific study should include standardized photography in visible and oblique light, X-ray or CT scanning, wood identification, and analysis of the light-colored layer. X-ray examinations could reveal internal cracks, any repairs, and the depth of the perforations. XRF, Raman spectroscopy, FTIR, and microscopy would allow for the detection of kaolin, clay, calcite, gypsum, organic binders, or modern materials. These methods are commonly used in conservation to characterize pigments, woods, internal structures, and restorations. Identifying the wood species through wood anatomy or microchemical analysis would provide more precise documentation of the raw material. The Smithsonian notes that combining anatomical and chemical methods can be particularly useful for woods used in African art. Microscopic examination of the edges of the holes would also help distinguish between intentional drill holes, insect galleries, and recent alterations.
Ritual Function
The exact function of this sculpture cannot be deduced from its appearance alone. In Dangme traditions, public altars serve as spiritual anchor points, emblems of ancestral authority, and markers of clan identity. Their significance may link a visible presence to religious content that is secret or reserved for priests and elders. Hugo Huber also describes rites of purification and pacification performed on shrines and certain sacred objects. This information lends credence to the hypothesis that the figure was once housed in a family or community shrine. It may have embodied an ancestral or spiritual presence, protected a family, a lineage, or a place of worship, or been the recipient of libations, coatings, and ritual renewals. However, this evidence does not allow for its formal identification as a specific ancestor, a deity, a funerary object, or an initiation figure. Recent sales catalogs report that several comparable sculptures attributed to Prampram may have belonged to shrines and may have been coated with successive layers of pigments or ritual substances. These accounts of provenance are useful for guiding research, but they do not replace an independent ethnographic investigation conducted within the communities in question.
Selected Bibliography
Cole, Herbert M., and Doran H. Ross. *The Arts of Ghana*. Los Angeles: Museum of Cultural History, University of California, 1977.
Huber, Hugo. *The Krobo: Traditional Social and Religious Life of a West African People*. St. Augustin: Anthropos Institute, 1963.
Huber, Hugo. "Adangme Purification and Pacification Rituals (West Africa)." Anthropos, vol. 53, 1958, pp. 161–191.
Quarcoopome, Nii Otokunor. "Thresholds and Thrones: Morphology and Symbolism of Dangme Public Altars." *Journal of Religion in Africa*, vol. 24, no. 4, 1994, pp. 339–357.
Quarcoopome, Nii Otokunor. *Rituals and Regalia of Power: Art and Politics Among the Dangme and Ewe, 1800 to Present*. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1993
The publications mentioned serve for comparative art historical classification. They do not establish the specific cultural attribution, dating, or original use of the sculpture in question.
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 copyright holders are reserved.
Inv. No. MAZ30880
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
Prampram
Country of Origin
Ghana
Material
Wood
Sold with stand
Yes
Condition
Fair condition
Title of artwork
A wooden sculpture
Height
153 cm
Weight
6.4 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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