AFRICAN TRIBAL BAULE COLONIAL COLON FIGURE IVORY COAST EX SOTHEBY AND KLUGE COL

Description

A Fine Baule Colonial Figure – Ivory Coast
ca. Late 19th-Early 20th Century
Wood, pigment, patina
Height: 29.2cm (11.5in)
PROVENANCE:
Property from the John Kluge Collection, Charlottesville, VA
Sotheby's, New York, NY, 2010
*Documentation on file and can accompany the artwork for historical conservation purposes.
Description: Baule Colonial Figure, standing on a circular base, with muscular legs beneath a cylindrical torso wearing a
pendant necklace,
shorts with hands in pockets, all below a large head with crescent-shaped eyes and finely incised coiffure; fine patina with red and white pigment.
Provenance:
The subject Baule figure was previously in the esteemed collection of John Kluge, Charlottesville, Virginia. Kluge was a world-renowned businessman, philanthropist and collector of ethnographic and ancient antiquities. The artifact was later purchased in 2010 by a private Los Angeles collector at the Sotheby's New York location where authenticated by art expert Florent Heintz. Heintz is a
highly respected scholar
in the Antiquities market who was a contributing curator of Greek and Roman art at the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts and Keeper of Coins at Harvard University’s Sackler Museum prior to joining Sotheby’s in 2001. Curatorial Remarks: Good condition
for being of considerable age. Surface wear commensurate with use.
The Baule create art in several media, including wooden sculpture, gold and brass casting similar to their Asante ancestors, and mask and figure carving, which have been greatly influenced by their Senufo and Guro neighbors (McIntyre and Roy, 1998). The production of colorful male and female carvings during periods of foreign occupation are common up and down the coast of West Africa. They are probably best known in Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire. They can usually be identified by the clothing that was added to appeal to, and appease, the mostly Christian Europeans who had moved into their homelands.
Like the nature spirits, Europeans were strange and threatening to the Baulé. By making these kinds of images, one has, just like with the nature spirits, the possibility to control that threatening power to some extent. It is therefore not surprising that the images were included in a cult that already existed for the nature spirits ('asié-usu). The Baulé  call these images 'Sondja', which according to Boyer (1983: 21-35) can be traced back to the English 'soldiers.These images date back to the 18th century. The figurines have a clear European character, especially because of the clothes they wear. They sometimes function as 'blolo-biam' figurines ('the husband or wife from the other, invisible world')" (NMVW, 1999)
.
Cf.
Portrait - Colon (Inventory No. AM-427-1), Baule, Ivory Coast, Guinea Coast, Africa Museum, Berg en Dal, Netherlands for a comparable example
.
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