Male Figure (One of a Pair)
African Art

Search and Share Tools
Male Figure (One of a Pair)
Artwork Details
Artist/Maker
Dogon Artist, Mali
Date
late nineteenth–early twentieth century
Medium
Wood
Accession #
2004.144
Dimensions
Please contact the Museum for more information.
Location
Currently Not on View
Description
Male and female pairs such as these two sculptures are placed on altars to secure ancestral blessings. The paired figures also recall the primordial couple described in Dogon oral histories and creation myths from whom all subsequent generations descended. The rather severe, abstract forms of these two figures echo one another. The proportions of their torsos and arms are elongated and their legs are compressed. The female figure balances a vessel on her head, a reminder of women’s quotidian duties as bearers of water, a precious resource for communities living at the edge of the Sahara Desert.