MUMUYE FIGURES ARCHIVES, Nigeria


The Mumuye Figures below have been SOLD.
They are left here for reference and educational purposes.

For UNSOLD Mumuye figures GO TO MUMUYE FIGURES PAGE

Mumuye 31
57", SOLD

 

Mumuye 32
55", SOLD

 

Mumuye 34
50", SOLD

 

Mumuye 35
SOLD

Mumuye 37
SOLD

 

Mumuye 39
SOLD

 

Mumuye 40
SOLD

Mumuye 41
SOLD

 

Mumuye 42
SOLD

 Mumuye 43
SOLD

 

 Mumuye 45
SOLD

Mumuye 46
SOLD

Mumuye 47
31", SOLD

 

Mumuye 48
28", SOLD

 

 Mumuye 49
SOLD

Mumuye 50
SOLD

 Mumuye 52
SOLD

Mumuye 53
28", SOLD

Mumuye 54
SOLD

Mumuye 55
SOLD

Mumuye 57
SOLD

Mumuye 59
SOLD

Mumuye 60
SOLD

Mumuye 70
SOLD



Mumuye
Figure 44
SOLD

Mumuye
Figure 51
SOLD

 

Mumuye
Figure 56
SOLD

Mumuye
Figures 72
SOLD

Photographs © Hamill Gallery

MUMUYE, FIGURES, Nigeria

Mumuye artists are famous for their wooden statues known as iagalagana. Even though the Mumuye show great respect for their ancestors, their statuary does not depict ancestors, but rather incarnates tutelary spirits. The statues reinforce the status and prestige of their owner who, as he holds them in his hands, has a dialogue with them and thus ensures his personal protection. The functions of sculptural figures are varied. They are used by both diviners and healers, whose professions included diagnosis and cure of ill health and other kinds of misfortunes. The figures were used to greet rainmaker's clients, guard the house, serve as owner's confidant, and in trials when men in dispute swear on the statue. It is not unusual for a figure simultaneously to serve two or more functions.

The figures vary in size from 20 centimeters to 1.6 meters, are highly abstracted, and may have added elements: beads, belts, bracelets, chains, leather laces, ropes or braided vegetable matter, brass wires, or cowrie shells. The statues' principal characteristic, unique in African art, is the creation of positive and negative space with a pattern of openwork between the body and the arms, which forms a scroll or a spiral around the slender, cylindrical torso. The heads may display a coiffure in the form of a crest. Scarification on face and body is delineated and nasal septum may be perforated for the insertion of a short section of a stalk of Guinea corn. A number of such sculptures have large ears with pierced and distended earlobes for the insertion of plugs.

GO TO MUMUYE FIGURES PAGE

GO TO MUMUYE OBJECTS PAGE

GO TO MUMUYE MASKS 1 PAGE

GO TO MUMUYE MASKS 2 PAGE

GO TO JUKUN YOKE MASKS PAGE

GO TO WURKUN YOKE MASKS PAGE

GO TO AFRICAN FIGURES PAGE

GO TO AFRICAN SELECTIONS 5 EXHIBITION PAGE

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