Harry Franklin, Los Angeles
Edwin and Cherie Silver, Los Angeles, acquired from the above on July 31, 1971

Montgomery Art Center, Pomona College, Claremont, California, Yoruba Sculpture in Los Angeles Collections, March 10 - April 6, 1969
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Mother and Child, September 15, 1973 - June 15, 1974
Fowler Museum of Cultural History, Los Angeles, Imaging Women in Africa: Selected Sculptures from Los Angeles Collections, November 12, 2000 - May 13, 2001

Arnold Rubin, Yoruba Sculpture in Los Angeles Collections, Claremont, 1969, cat. no. 40 
Nooter Roberts, Imaging Women in African Art: Selected Sculptures From Los Angeles Collections, Los Angeles, 2000, p. 63, fig. 1

The vibrant sculptural traditions of the Osogbo region of central Yorubaland was first brought to the attention of the Western eye by writer and scholar Ulli Beier, who, along with his wife Susanne, immersed himself in Yoruba life and became one of its most prolific cultural advocates in the late 1950’s. In his 1957 Nigeria Magazine feature 'The Story of Sacred Wood Carvings from One Small Yoruba Town', Beier describes figural sculptures as "[t]he real glories of Ilobu" carving types (Beier, 'The Story of Sacred Wood Carvings', Nigeria Magazine, 1957, unpaginated). In particular, he calls shrine figures "the real treasures…All of them are of great beauty and power. It is amazing indeed, that there is not a single mediocre work among them" (ibid.).

Unlike more recognizable religious sculptures of Christianity and the Far East, Yoruba shrine figures were, in most instances, not icons of devotion or worship themselves. Instead, they were placed in the shrines of different orishas but depicted priests or other worshippers endowed with earthly spiritual authority. In Yoruba mythology, an orisha is a deified being who partially embodies the divine powers of the omniscient God but who rules over a particular natural force or element in a manner similar to the pantheon of Hellenistic gods who each had his or her own special portfolios. Far from being representations of morality or the universal good, they retain the flawed character traits of human beings, and according to Yoruba scholar John Pemberton, "are deeply ambiguous figures, endowed with remarkable creativity capacity, but capable of violent behavior" (Pemberton, in Sotheby’s, ed., African, Oceanic & Pre-Columbian Art, May 2012, lot 127, p. 110).

Shrine figures, like most other types of Yoruba sculpture, are generally naturalistic. The present lot depicts a kneeling woman carrying an infant on her back and holding a round hollow bowl in front of her with relaxed but elongated arms. True to classic Yoruba form, her disproportionally large eyes and eyelids bulge out of her ovoid face, imbuing the figure with a spiritual intensity that is enhanced by her rigid taut lips. In striking visual contrast to the light brown patina of the rest of the sculpture, the striated surfaces of the mother and child’s voluminous coiffures are covered with deep blue pigment. In his aforementioned 1957 essay, Beier states: "The Yoruba sculpture readjusts the proportions of the human body to suit his artistic intentions" (Beier, 'The Story of Sacred Wood Carvings', Nigeria Magazine, 1957, unpaginated). This artistic license with proportion is certainly evident here, most visibly in her prominent pointed br꧂easts and the oversized feet whi𒀰ch support the back of the sculpture. Despite the figure's skewed physical proportions, the feet, breasts, and the gently bent forearms run in parallel planes, unifying the sculpture in a muted harmony uniquely suited for the devotional setting in which they resided.