Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Seated figure
Not on view
Intensive exposure to the elements has swept away most of this work’s original features, yet an expression of intense reflection lingers. With its elegant, attenuated limbs, arms extended forward, and cupped hands resting on either knee, the figure has been pared down to its underlying structure, so that its gender is difficult to determine. Throughout, the exposed grain of the wood is emphatically horizontal.
French curator Pierre Mauzé was quick to recognize this sculpture’s poetic power and acquired it in 1974 for the Musée des arts africains et océaniens, several months before the exhibition at Hélène Kamer’s gallery. It is among the highlights of non-Western art selected to be permanently on view at the Musée du Louvre, Paris.
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