Fine and Rare Igbo Female Figure, Nigeria
Wood, pigments, beads, encrustations
Height 26 1/2in (67.3cm)

Provenance
Peter and Lauri Pollack Collection, Chicago
Private Collection

Cf. Cole, Herbert and Chike Aniakor, Igbo Arts: Community and Cosmos, Museum of Cultural History, Los Angeles, University of California, 1984, fig. 209, for a similar figure, possibly by the same hand, with the same elaborate, mask-like headdress and hairstyle.

Cole notes (Ibid, footnote to fig. 209), 'Female figure, possibly a display carving, but if so, anomalous in that tradition because of the age of the woman depicted, her elaborate headdress, and the hand-held objects (now broken off). Collection Alain and Rosemarie Dufour, Paris.'

Finely carved in naturalistic form, wearing a complex and elaborate headdress with openwork design; her eyes slightly downcast, naturalistic nose and broad lips; the angle of the downward-sloping shoulders balance the angle to the headdress above; the arms bent at the elbows with implements in each hand border her torso with downward pointed breasts and enhanced umbilicus; wearing a skirt with parallel rib design that ends just above her lower legs which are now lost; fine dark and light brown patina with pigment and encrustations.

Half of right leg and entire left leg lost; age distress line with large separation to the lower left side; hole to front of skirt; old losses to the elaborate headdress; losses to pigmentation throughout; abrasions, nicks, scratches and wear consistent with age. Custom base.