Spoon with figure
Ivory spoons from present-day Sierra Leone feature prominently in Portuguese trade inventories from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Carefully carved, with virtually translucent bowls and delicate handles, such miniatures were designed primarily for display. This is one of fewer than a dozen fragile creations known to have survived in documented collections. The carver played with repetition of form by mirroring the oblong head and slender torso of the figure in the shapes of the spoon’s bowl and handle.
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