A rare Bamana anthropomorphic power figure

the ovoid body heavily layered and encrusted with organic materials, with hair at the lower portion and surmounted by a wooden head with typical features, a pointed mouth and long nose leading to the tall forehead framed by a transversely crested coiffure; with an iron hook at the reverse presumably for suspension; '160A-22' in white pigment on the neck; aged and encrusted surface overall.

Stolper Gallleries, Robert Stolper and Morton Lipkin, Amsterdam, May 12th, 1966

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Milwaukee Public Museum, Selections from the William W. Brill Collection of African Art, May 5 – August 31, 1969 (for additional venues see bibliography, Milwaukee 1969)
New York, Pace Gallery, African Accumulative Sculpture, September 21 - October 19, 1974
New York, Center for African Art, Wild Spirits/Strong Medicine: African Art and the Wilderness, May 10 - August 20, 1989 (for additional venues see bibliography, Anderson and Kraemer 1989)

Pace Gallery 1974: 19, figure 11
Robbins and Nooter 1989: 75, figure 62
Anderson and Kreamer 1989: 81, figure 1

The representation of a power figure with human characteristics is rare in Bamana art. The more well-known among the Bamana are the zoomorphic, or occasionally amorphous, figures referred to as boli, which, like the Brill figure, also have heavily layered and encrusted surfaces. Based on these characteristics, the Brill figure most likely served within a protective capacity.