Lagoon Peoples

19th Century
Height 6’ 2”
Mother of pearl, wood

Provenance
Loudmer-Poulain, Paris, November, 22, 1979,
lot 130.
Collected by Captain Alfred Francis Fuller 1890’s
One of three figures collected.
Sotheby’s Allan Stone sale at November 15 Lot 43
Third, donated to British Museum 1951

Description from the Archives
“The present figure is a rare example of the early fusion of traditional African sculptural canons and western visual influences, executed by a sculptor in the Lagoons Region of Ivory Coast circa 1900. The hairstyle, ringed neck, and scarification marks are consistent with traditional Lagoons region sculptural idioms and ideals of female beauty; however the life-sized scale, naturalistic proportions, and integrally-carved pedestal reveal a European influence. This is one of three such sculptures presently known, which are so closely comparable stylistically that they can be attributed to the same hand. During his travels in West Africa, Captain Alfred Walter Francis Fuller collected a closely related female figure circa 1900. As his collection focused on Oceania, he donated the figure to the British Museum in 1951 (inv. no. “Af1951,28.1″, see Visonà 2005: 60), where it remains. William Fagg surmised that the Fuller figure was carved by an Anyi (Agni) artist influenced by a naturalistic European style.”

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