A Bone sculpture - Losso - Togo (No Reserve Price)

A Losso bone couple, Togo, Northern region. Certificate of origin and provenance.

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.

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"I believe that the import of all art objects from Africa—whether copies or originals—should be prohibited to protect Africa." Quote: Prof. Dr. Viola König, former director of the Ethnological Museum of Berlin, now HUMBOLDTFORUM

Legal Framework

Under the 1970 UNESCO Convention in combination with the Kulturgutschutz Gesetz (KGSG) any claim for the restitution of cultural property becomes time-barred three years after the competent authorities of the State of origin obtain knowledge of the object’s location and the identity of its possessor.

All bronzes and terracotta items offered have been publicly exhibited in Wolfgang Jaenicke Gallery since 2001. Organisations such as DIGITAL BENIN and academic institutions such as the Technical University of Berlin, which have been intensively involved in restitution-reseaches (translocation-project) over the past seven years, are aware of our work, have inspected large parts of our collection and have visited us in our dependance in Lomé, Togo, among other places, to learn about the international Art trade on site. Furthermore, the National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM) in Abuja, Nigeria, has been informed about our collection. In no case in the past have there been restitution claims against private institutions such as the Wolfgang Jaenicke Gallery

Our Gallery addresses these structural challenges through a policy of maximum transparency and documentation. Should any questions or uncertainties arise, we invite you to contact us. Each matter will be reviewed diligently using all available resources.

Height: 16 cm / 18,5 cm
Weight: 125 g / 190 g