Male Figure

CC0 Public Domain Designation

Possibly 18th century

Dogon
Bandiagara region, Mali
Northern Africa and the Sahel

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.

Status: On View, Gallery 137
Department: Arts of Africa

Culture: Dogon
Title: Male Figure
Place: Mali (Object made in:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1701–1800
Medium: Wood, pigment, and sacrificial material
Dimensions: 98.5 × 15.5 × 13.9 cm (39 1/4 × 6 1/8 × 5 1/2 in.)
Credit Line: Janie Brill Memorial Fund; Major Acquisitions Centennial Endowment
Reference Number: 1996.41
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/144353/manifest.json

Museum of African Art, The de Havenon Collection, exh. cat. (Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C., 1971), cat. 28.
Raoul Lehuard, “La Collection Marc Ginzburg,” Arts d’Afrique Noire, no. 25 (Arnouville: 1978), pp. 5-10; 6 (ill.).
Susan Vogel, African Sculpture: The Shape of Surprise, exh. cat. (C.W. Post Art Gallery School of the Arts, 1980), p. 9, cat. 1.
Warren M. Robbins and Nancy Ingram Nooter, African Art in American Collections (Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989), pp. 60 (ill.).
Hélène LeLoup, Dogon Statuary (Strasbourg: Éditions Amez, 1994), figs. 121 and 122.
Kathleen Birckford and Cherise Smith, “Art of the Western Sudan,” African Art at the Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Studies, vo. 23, no. 2 (1997), pp. 110 (ill.).
Constantine Petridis et al., Speaking of Objects: African Art at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2020), cat. no. 5, pp. 36-37.

Washington, D.C., National Museum of African Art, The de Havenon Collection, May 1971–Apr. 1972, cat. 28.
Long Island, N.Y., C.W. Post Art Gallery, African Sculpture: The Shape of Surprise, Feb. 17–Mar. 30, 1980, cat. 1.
Art Institute of Chicago, African Abstraction: Dogon Figurative Sculpture, July 3–Oct. 20, 1996, no cat.

The Schanté Collection, Paris, by the 1960s [according to personal communication with Denyse Ginzberg dated Feb. 21, 2014, in curatorial file; object information from L & R Entwistle Gallery, 1996]. Gaston T. de Havenon (died 1993), The de Havenon Collection, New York, N.Y., by 1971 to 1975 [see Museum of African Art, 1971]; sold to Marc and Denyse Ginzberg, New York, N.Y., 1975 [according to personal communication with Denyse Ginzberg dated Feb. 21, 2014, in curatorial file]; consigned to Lance Entwistle, L & R Entwistle Gallery, London, 1996; sold to the Art Institute, 1996.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

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