Dan Female Sculpture, Ivory Coast / Liberia 01

Dan Female Sculpture, Ivory Coast / Liberia 01Dan Female Sculpture, Ivory Coast Liberia In Dan society, sculptures of Women are Prestige Objects that reflect positively both on their owners' and their subjects' reputations. Among the most costly of Dan expressive forms, they are commissioned by Men to honor an especially esteemed Wife. The sculptures are conceived of as portraits of the women they depict, although this and other examples suggest an emphasis on established Dan Ideals of Feminine

• Dan Female Sculpture, Ivory Coast / Liberia
• In Dan society, sculptures of Women are Prestige Objects that reflect positively both on their owners' and their subjects' reputations. Among the most costly of Dan expressive forms, they are commissioned by Men to honor an especially esteemed Wife. The sculptures are conceived of as portraits of the women they depict, although this and other examples suggest an emphasis on established Dan Ideals of Feminine Beauty. This figure is Mid 20th Century in age, and the style is emblematic for elegantly modeled features and finely carved details such as this Woman's elaborate scarification.
• A female Dan sculpture, Ivory Coast/Liberia, standing on wedge-shaped feet, wearing bracelets around ankles, slightly bent muscular legs ending up in prominent buttocks, clearly formed labia, a columnar torso with a pointed navel and pendulous breasts, powerful shoulders terminating in free-hanging arms, short wedge-shaped hands, each wrist is surrounded by one carved bangle, the elongated cylindrical neck supporting an ovoid head with a mask-like face, a protruding mouth with full lips and metal teeth, a triangular nose framed by deep set slit eyes, slightly protruding cheeks, a bulging forehead, semicircular ears with a significant tragus, three round ornaments on the top of the head; blackened patina with white pigments, traces of age and ritual use, authentic repair on the broken right arm.
• Measurements:  58cm
  
• Condition: Good: traces of age and long ritual use, authentic repair on the broken right arm
• Custom Base included.
• Lit.: MetMuseum Dan Female Figure; Eberhard Fischer and Hans Himmelheber: The Arts of the Dan in West Africa, Museum Rietberg, Zürich, 1984; Eberhard Fischer: Dan Artists: The Sculptors Tame, Si, Tompieme and Sõn- Their Personalities and Work, Zurich, 2014; MetMuseum Dan Female Figure; Burkhard Gottschalk: Kunst aus Schwarz-Afrika. Zeugnisse der Meisterschaft afrikanischer Schnitzer aus privaten Sammlungen. Band 2, Düsseldorf 2007.