A superb Baule staff

of overall complex conception and refined proportions, the iron tip beneath the slender, multi-tiered shaft, a faceted keg beneath three adorsed faces, a spiralled knot and a drum beneath two more faces supporting the seated male figure of serene posture and expression with an elaborate pendant beard, full lips and heavy-lidded eyes and wearing a deeply incised coiffure beneath the knobbed finial; exceptionally fine and varied deep brown patina.

New York, Museum for African Art, Baule: African Art Western Eyes, September 11, 1998 - January 2, 1999

Robbins and Nooter 1989: 564, figure 1562
Vogel 1997: 55

As described by Vogel (1997: 55), the Brill staff 'from the eastern Baule region, probably dates from the late nineteenth century. A locus for ancestral sacrifices, it is a cipher of wealth and prestige that an art historian can read phrase by phrase - though Baule spectators would grasp the meaning whole, without laboriously deciphering the separate parts. The fine head suggests intelligence; the elegant beard, beauty; the rude feet planted on the forehead of a man with scarification of a northerner bespeaks the owner has many slaves; the drum swathed in a hunting net communicates success in war; the fat knot and three faces mean wives and fine possessions; the keg trade and riches. Traces of sacrificies have probably been washed off.'