Window mode follows your eyes with your camera, in this browser only: no picture or position leaves your device.
Male Figure
Dogon (Mali)
Possibly 18th century
- Medium
- Wood and sacrificial material
- Classification
- Sculpture
- Dimensions
- 99.7 × 15.6 × 16.6 cm (39 1/4 × 6 1/8 × 6 1/2 in.)
- Culture
- Mali
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of Africa
- Credit line
- Janie Brill Memorial Fund; Major Acquisitions Centennial Endowment
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Made for a large altar honoring ancestors, this figure’s crusty surface resulted from repeated ritual applications of sacrificial materials including animal blood, millet porridge, plant juice, and oil, infusing it with a vital energy. Its braided hairstyle, thin beard, amulet-pendant, and ritual staff (on his left shoulder) suggest that this figure portrays a high-ranking man. The extremely dry environment of the cave where it was stored helped to preserve it.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
