Figure - Wood - Sakalava - Madagascar

A female Sakalava Funerary Figure, Madagascar.

Early to mid-XXth.

The Malagasy are mostly known for the funerary statues and the aloalo bird pillars. The Sakalava ancestor figures, represent the deceased or its opposite sex companion. The grave usually had both figures carved around symbolizing an ideal union.

The ancestor figures are usually represented nude; the figures often much abraded by the wind, the salt, the sun and the sand of the elements giving the camphor wood that is originally red a gray mat patina.

BW image ca. 1910 Antankarana Woman From Mahajanga, Madagascar (courtesy Gallica library)

H= 72cm