A bone sculpture - Losso - 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.
Estimate € 160 - € 200
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A bone sculpture by the Losso people from Northern Togo, titled 'A bone sculpture', 18 cm high, 380 g, in fair condition and not sold with a stand.
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Description from the seller
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
Seller's Story
For over twenty-five years, Wolfgang Jaenicke has been active as a collector and, for the past two decades, as a specialist dealer in African art, with a particular focus on material often subsumed under the term “Tribal Art”. His early engagement with cultural history was shaped by his father’s extensive archive on the former “German Colonies”, a collection of documents, publications and artefacts that introduced him to the evidentiary and historical significance of objects at a young age.
Jaenicke pursued studies in ethnology, art history and comparative law at the Freie Universität Berlin. Motivated by an interest in cultural dynamics beyond the limitations of academic formalism, he left the university to undertake extended research and travel in West and Central Africa. His fieldwork and professional activities took him through Cameroon, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Togo and Ghana, establishing long-term relationships with artists, collectors, researchers and local institutions.
From 2002 to 2012 he lived primarily in Mali, based in Bamako and Ségou. During this period he directed Tribalartforum, a gallery housed in a historic colonial building overlooking the Ségou harbour. The gallery became a notable site for contemporary and historical cultural production, hosting exhibitions of Bamana sculpture and ceramics, as well as photographic works including those of Malick Sidibé, whose images of the 1970s youth culture in Mali remain internationally influential. The outbreak of the war in Mali in 2012 necessitated the closure of the gallery.
Following his departure from Mali, Jaenicke established his base of operations in Lomé, Togo, where he and his partners maintain a permanent branch. The Jaenicke-Njoya GmbH, founded sixteen years earlier, serves as the organisational and legal framework for these activities. In 2018, the Galerie Wolfgang Jaenicke opened its Berlin location opposite Charlottenburg Palace, operating today with a team of approximately twelve specialists.
A significant focus of the gallery’s curatorial and research work lies in West African bronzes and terracotta. As part of ongoing efforts toward transparency and precise cultural documentation, Jaenicke collaborated with the Technische Universität Berlin’s “Translocation Project”, contributing insight into the circulation of archaeological and ethnographic objects within the international art trade in Lomé. The gallery maintains continuous dialogue with national museums across West Africa and regularly publishes updates on its activities in Lomé and Berlin via its website: wolfgang-jaenicke
Jaenicke’s practice combines long-term field engagement with a commitment to provenance research, museum-level documentation, and the ethical stewardship of cultural heritage. His work continues to bridge local knowledge networks and international scholarly discourse.
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
Seller's Story
For over twenty-five years, Wolfgang Jaenicke has been active as a collector and, for the past two decades, as a specialist dealer in African art, with a particular focus on material often subsumed under the term “Tribal Art”. His early engagement with cultural history was shaped by his father’s extensive archive on the former “German Colonies”, a collection of documents, publications and artefacts that introduced him to the evidentiary and historical significance of objects at a young age.
Jaenicke pursued studies in ethnology, art history and comparative law at the Freie Universität Berlin. Motivated by an interest in cultural dynamics beyond the limitations of academic formalism, he left the university to undertake extended research and travel in West and Central Africa. His fieldwork and professional activities took him through Cameroon, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Togo and Ghana, establishing long-term relationships with artists, collectors, researchers and local institutions.
From 2002 to 2012 he lived primarily in Mali, based in Bamako and Ségou. During this period he directed Tribalartforum, a gallery housed in a historic colonial building overlooking the Ségou harbour. The gallery became a notable site for contemporary and historical cultural production, hosting exhibitions of Bamana sculpture and ceramics, as well as photographic works including those of Malick Sidibé, whose images of the 1970s youth culture in Mali remain internationally influential. The outbreak of the war in Mali in 2012 necessitated the closure of the gallery.
Following his departure from Mali, Jaenicke established his base of operations in Lomé, Togo, where he and his partners maintain a permanent branch. The Jaenicke-Njoya GmbH, founded sixteen years earlier, serves as the organisational and legal framework for these activities. In 2018, the Galerie Wolfgang Jaenicke opened its Berlin location opposite Charlottenburg Palace, operating today with a team of approximately twelve specialists.
A significant focus of the gallery’s curatorial and research work lies in West African bronzes and terracotta. As part of ongoing efforts toward transparency and precise cultural documentation, Jaenicke collaborated with the Technische Universität Berlin’s “Translocation Project”, contributing insight into the circulation of archaeological and ethnographic objects within the international art trade in Lomé. The gallery maintains continuous dialogue with national museums across West Africa and regularly publishes updates on its activities in Lomé and Berlin via its website: wolfgang-jaenicke
Jaenicke’s practice combines long-term field engagement with a commitment to provenance research, museum-level documentation, and the ethical stewardship of cultural heritage. His work continues to bridge local knowledge networks and international scholarly discourse.
Details
Ethnic group/ culture
Losso
Country of Origin
Togo
Material
Bone
Sold with stand
No
Condition
Fair condition
Title of artwork
A bone sculpture
Height
18 cm
Weight
380 g
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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