Gouro maternity home, Ivory Coast - Lot 22

Gouro maternity home, Ivory Coast Wood H. 69 cm Provenance : - Pierre and Claude Vérité Collection - Enchères Rive Gauche, Paris, Collection Vérité, June 17, 2006, no. 381 - Collection Mme F. Important statue of a mother breast-feeding her child, seated on a chair. The child is treated with a beautiful geometrisation of volumes, while the sculpture of the mother unfolds between stylization and naturalism, in the classical Gouro manner. The head is treated with great care, the face particularly finely modeled with beautiful keloid scarifications, and the half-open mouth revealing two rows of teeth removed in the ancient tradition. The large size, the rarity of the maternity theme and the exceptional quality of this sculpture make it a major work in the corpus of Gouro art. Restoration on the left side of the chair.