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African and Oceanic Art from the Barbier-Mueller Museum, Geneva: A Legacy of Collecting
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Poro Female Figure: Pombia
Côte d'Ivoire, village of Lataha; Senufo peoples, 19th century
Wood; H. 46 1/2 in. (118 cm)
Provenance: Collected by Fr. Clamens in Lataha village, Côte d'Ivoire, 1951; [Emil Storrer, Paris, 1952]; Josef Mueller, 1952
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Master carvers in Senufo communities of Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, and Burkina Faso have created some of Africa's greatest figurative sculptures. This female figure, collected during a widespread iconoclastic movement, was carved with a male counterpart as part of a pair conceived of as guarantors of social continuity and protection. (The location of the male counterpart is not known.) Pairs of male and female sculptures rendered in idealized form stand among those artists' most prominent works. Initiation societies, known as Poro, likely commissioned these couples carved in wood to refer to the origins of humanity and foundation of society. In some instances such sculptures, called "children of Poro" or pombibele (singular: pombia), became part of the staging for funerary ceremonies commemorating distinguished elders. In other instances, young members of Poro may have carried the sculptures while tapping them regularly on the ground to the rhythm of drums. See the Poro male figure in the Met's collection.
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