Gan, Burkina Faso, 19th century or earlier
Cast copper alloy
Height 6 3/4 inches (17.1 cm)
Provenance: London trade; Romy Rey, London
The figure stands with the legs held straight and slightly apart, the arms hanging free of the body from shoulder to hand with an open gap between arm and torso along their whole length. The head is a narrow wedge with the eyes marked as raised lozenges, a long straight nose, and a mouth set as a shallow bar, and a ring encircles the neck below it, with a second heavier collar sitting where the neck meets the shoulders. Fine incised marks run in short groups across the chest and abdomen, and the surface carries a green verdigris that has settled into those lines and into the hollows behind the arms while the raised edges have worn back to bare metal.
Gan castings come from the far southwest of Burkina Faso, near the borders with Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, where they were kept as part of the regalia and shrine holdings associated with kingship and lineage authority. Figures of this class are typically small, cast solid by the lost wax process, and built on the elongated proportion seen here rather than on naturalistic modeling. The gap worked between the arms and the body is the technically demanding element in a casting of this size, and both arms are intact here along with the neck rings.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
Gan, Burkina Faso, 19th century or earlier
Cast copper alloy
Height 6 3/4 inches (17.1 cm)
Provenance: London trade; Romy Rey, London
The figure stands with the legs held straight and slightly apart, the arms hanging free of the body from shoulder to hand with an open gap between arm and torso along their whole length. The head is a narrow wedge with the eyes marked as raised lozenges, a long straight nose, and a mouth set as a shallow bar, and a ring encircles the neck below it, with a second heavier collar sitting where the neck meets the shoulders. Fine incised marks run in short groups across the chest and abdomen, and the surface carries a green verdigris that has settled into those lines and into the hollows behind the arms while the raised edges have worn back to bare metal.
Gan castings come from the far southwest of Burkina Faso, near the borders with Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, where they were kept as part of the regalia and shrine holdings associated with kingship and lineage authority. Figures of this class are typically small, cast solid by the lost wax process, and built on the elongated proportion seen here rather than on naturalistic modeling. The gap worked between the arms and the body is the technically demanding element in a casting of this size, and both arms are intact here along with the neck rings.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
