This work's scale and complexity have led scholars to suggest that it may have been created for display at the funerals of influential Dogon men. The graphic composition constitutes an eloquent statement concerning the distinct and yet complementary roles of male and female partners as a unit of life. With understated elegance and an economy of details, the artistic distills man and woman to a perfectly integrated and harmonious union. One of the most striking aspects of the representation is the degree of bilateral symmetry that describes man and woman as reflections of each other with delicate and subtle departures that indicate their distinct identities. The figures' elongated bodies are depicted as a series of parallel vertical lines traversed by horizontals that draw them together. On the reverse side a small child clinging to the female's back is balanced by a quiver on the back of the male. That concluding pair of features distinguishes their respective role as nurturer and provider joined together to procreate and sustain life.
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Millot, Jacques. Arts Connus et Méconnus de l'Afrique Noire: Collection Paul Tishman. Paris: Musée de l'Homme, 1966.
Leuzinger, Elsy, and Walter Bangerter. Afrikanische Kunstwerke: Kulturen am Niger. Recklinghausen: A. Bongers, 1971.
Kan, Michael. "The Wunderman Collection: Dogon Sculpture and the Understanding of African Art." ArtNews vol. 72 (1973), p. 76.
Laude, Jean. African Art of the Dogon: The Myths of the Cliff Dwellers. New York: Brooklyn Museum, 1973, p. 33, front cover (image reversed), no. 37.
Imperato, Pascal James. "The art of Mali's Mountain People." In Dogon Cliff Dwellers. New York: L. Kahan Gallery, New York, 1978.
Jones, Julie. Metropolitan Museum of Art: Notable Acquisitions, 1975–1979. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1979, p. 94.
Jones, Mark. The Art of the Medal. London: British Museum Publications, 1979, pp. 91–96.
Vogel, Susan M. African Sculpture: The Shape of Surprise. Greenvale, NY: C.W. Post Art Gallery, 1980.
DeMott, Barbara. Dogon Masks: A Structural Study of Form and Meaning. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1982, fig. 6, Laude 1973, Flam 1970.
Kerchache, Jacques. Chefs d'oeuvre de l'art Africain: Musée de Grenoble, 1982. Grenoble: Musée de Grenoble, 1982.
Vogel, Susan M. African Aesthetics: The Carlo Monzino Collection. New York: Center for African Art, 1986, pp. 9–11, no. 6.
Vogel, Susan M. Aesthetics of African Art: The Carlo Monzino Collection. New York: Center for African Art, 1986.
Newton, Douglas, Julie Jones, and Kate Ezra. The Pacific Islands, Africa, and the Americas: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987, p. 64, no. 42.
Sieber, Roy, and Roslyn Walker. African Art in the Cycle of Life. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1987.
Ezra, Kate. Art of the Dogon: Selections from the Lester Wunderman Collection. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1988, no. 23.
Van Beek, Walter E. A. "Functions of Sculpture in Dogon Religion." African Arts vol. 21, no. 4 (August 1988), p. 63.
Nooter, Nancy Ingram, and Warren Robbins. African Art in American Collections: Survey 1989. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989, fig. 15.
Paudrat, Jean-Louis. Dogon. Paris: Editions Dapper, 1994, pp. 47, 85.
LaGamma, Alisa. Echoing Images: Couples in African Sculpture. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004, Frontispiece.
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The Met's collection of art of the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa, the Pacific Islands, and North, Central, and South America comprises more than eleven thousand works of art of varied materials and types, representing diverse cultural traditions from as early as 3000 B.C.E. to the present.
