Burkina Faso

According to Daniela Bognolo (2007, p. 52-53), throughout Lobi country only master-sculptors were allowed to create the ancestor effigies known as thilkotina. Therefore the latter are quintessential specimens of the "archetypal style" of each Lobi community, as well as of the talent of their creators. In this piece the essential characteristics of the Lobi statuary are interpreted with such singularity and command that they denote the "hand" of a remarkable sculptor, which can also be seen in the famous female figure from the former Jacques Kerchache collection (cf. Kerchache, Paudrat, Stephan, 1988, p. 86, n° 40).

According to Bognolo - writing about the Kerchache statue - (2007, p. 130, n° 4), " for the Dagara (whose formal design principles are exemplified in this figure) anthropomorphic figuration is closely associated with private and personal worship. Its distinctive features are its predominantly geometric volumes and the more or less pronounced hollow of the face emphasised by the small pouting mouth and the pointed chin. Each sculptor adapts these formal features depending on the way he depicts the human figure, in accordance with the area where he works."

In this piece, the liveliness of the stance and the lithe limbs provide a strong base for the striking power of the face, whose forceful stylised features - a radically shaped, deeply hollowed face leading down to a small, barely carved mouth and up to large downcast eyes - seem entirely dedicated to the expression of interiority.

Certain sculptors have had an impact on the rare body of Dagara statuary. Mahire Somé (ca. 1800 – ca. 1880) is one of them: a master of the so-called "zeon" style (Bognolo, ibid, p. 58). Although the creator of the restricted corpus from which this sculpture and the example from the Jacques Kerchache collection originate remains unknown, the deep patina of the hard wood and the appearance of the sacrificial patina are both proof that they were carved during the same period.

Provenance: Jean Michel Huguenin, Paris