COUPLES

MOSSI Dolls

NYAMWEZI Couple 16

TIKAR Couple 1

AJA Figures

BAKONGO Staffs 1&2

MATACOM Couple 1

GAN Couple 1

FON Couple 4

EWE Couples

BAULE Couples

DOGON Metal Couples

DOGON Couples

BAMANA Chi-wara

DOGON Doors

BAULE Doors

FON Couples

HEMBA Couples

PENDE Couple 1 SOLD

FANG Couple 1 SOLD

BAMANA Couple 1 SOLD

IGBO Couple 1 16.5", $500

ORON Couple 2 47", $2000

LUBA Headrests Catalog

LOBI Couples Catalog

LUBA Offering Bowls

LUBA Couple Stools

DOGON Stools Catalog

DOGON Granary Doors

MUMUYE Couple 72 19", $350

VARIOUS Metal Couples

PERE Couples Catalog

Usually representing spirits, ancestors or the primordial couple, figures like these were placed in shrines and treated with great respect. Through a wide range of style, scale, belief and function the couples depicted share a timeless, serene equality necessary to the continuity of their societies. Traditionally, most of the couples are two freestanding figures, conceived as a unit, and posed frontally, symmetrically, in formal postures and of equal size.

Sculpted as stools and headrests, the male and female figures serve as symbolic supports, or as handles when worked into the design of bowls. Couples also appear as decorative elements on African doors.