Bambara - 180757 - Tribal used African Bamun Beads figure - Cameroon. - Vendu

Finely crafted african figure from the Bamun, Cameroon, in form of a man. 

Such figures are placed for prestige purposes. 

Hand carved from a single piece of wood, covered with cloth and embroidered with colored glass beads.

Height: 37 cm.

Taxatiewaarde: 225 - 275 euro.

Bamum (Bamoum, Bamoun, Bamun, Banun, Mom, Mum, Mun) social life was oriented toward the conquest of surrounding chieftainries, and forays were made into neighboring lands: from this stems a warrior mythology and an abundance of material symbols of strength. The Bamum produced large figures encrusted with beads and cowries. Noteworthy elephant heads cast in bronze. There are also: dance masks in the form of a long head and a high neck, also in animal-head form; footstools and thrones decorated and supported by animal or human figures. In the small kingdom of Bangwa, the heads of statues and masks feature puffed-out cheeks. The very characteristic sculpture in the round attains its apogee in a depiction of a horn-player who wears traditional headgear in the shape of a tiara; the thick double arc of his eyebrows overhang, and the mouth is treated in parallelepipedal relief under a heavy nose featuring well-shaped nostrils.