An important Igbo female figure

ugonachomma, standing on wedge-shaped feet beneath broad anklets, the figure with slightly bent knees and elongated legs tapering to the slender torso with a protruding pointed navel, conical breasts and full, rounded shoulders pitched slightly forward, the bent arms encircled with armlets and bracelets leading to the finely carved hands bearing a fan and crook in either hand, a disc-shaped pendant encircling the elongated neck beneath the tall, elaborately incised single crested coiffure framing the highly stylized diminutive face with recessed chin, smiling mouth, pointed nose and almond-shaped eyes; the whole decorated with incised organic and geometric motifs, the aged surface pigmented in deep layers of red and yellow ochre, black, white and blue pigment.

Albert F. Gordon, New York

National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C., Extended loan, 1989-1993

Cole and Aniakor, Igbo Arts: Community and Cosmos, 1984: 99, plate 21, catalogue of the exhibition, The Frederick S. Wight Art Gallery, University of California, Los Angeles, October 9 - November 25, 1984 (see bibliography for additional venues)

Cole 1984: 69, figure 11

This female figure represents one of the finest examples of Igbo sculpture, and certainly the hand of a master carver. The strength of the facial features and development of the surface compares most closely to another female figure from the Schindler Collection at the Dallas Museum of Art (Robbins and Nooter 1989: number 673 and cover). However, this figure compares even more favorably in the lightness and attenuation of form coupled with the subtle suggestion of movement.

This figure is called ugonachomma, meaning 'the eagle seeks out beauty'.  This saying metaphorically compares a young woman to an eagle as both are held to high moral and aesthetic ideals in Igbo thought. Used during age-grade dance festivals, the figures are displayed as prestige emblems. It is possible that in commissioning this type of figure 'there was an impulse to ask for something different and perhaps a bit grander than the sculpture owned by the previous grade' (Cole and Aniakor 1984: 108). 'In these secular sculptures [the Igbo artists] freed themselves, distorting the body within a naturalistic mode to emphasize the popular concepts of feminine beauty: long necks, fine hairstyles...precise attention to jewelry and other enhancing features such as scarification and body painting, not to mention prestige objects such as mirrors and umbrellas (most of the latter have been broken off)' (ibid.: 107).