Yoruba Equestrian Figure, Ibarapa Region, Nigeria

Pace Gallery, New York
Balene McCormick, Santa Fe, acquired from the above

William Buller Fagg, Yoruba: Sculpture of West Africa, New York, 1982, p. 174, pl. 161

Very good condition for an object of this type and great age. Age crack to back proper left side of head behind ear. Two small holes in top of head. Thin age crack to proper right side of body, extending into saddle. Age crack to horse's body in front of proper right stirrup. Minor age crack diagonally across back. Old chip to proper left ear of horse, patinated over. Exceptionally fine thick crusty black patina. Some areas of flaking to patina, including on right side of face. Some areas of surface are fragile. Age cracks between horses hooves to pegs for attachment, with glue. Green putty (removable) stuck to underside of pegs for fitting into base.
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Describing the McCormick Yoruba Equestrian on the occasion of the 1982 exhibition Yoruba: Sculpture of West Africa, Pemberton (in Fagg 1982: 174) suggests that this figure was once part of a larger ensemble, and relates this figure to a stool today in the British Museum, made up of individually carved pieces and centered upon an equestrian figure, which was collected by Richard and John Lander in 1830.  The Landers stool "is striking evidence for the antiquity and the widespread use of this type of stool whith its prominent equestrian figure.  Landers' account of the room in which he received the stool as filled with prints of King George and of the Duke of Wellington on horseback, horse accoutrements, and passages from the Koran is close to being a description of a shrine, a repository of images of power.  It clearly testifies to the symbolic importance of the equestrian figure in Yoruba society. [...]

"The hand of another carver from an Ibrapa town created this splendid equestrian figure.  The rider's hat with its spiral pattern is of a type found on carvings from the Abeokuta area (see Chappel 1981: figs. 1-5), thus suggesting a southern Ibrapa provenance.  The diminuitive animal and the dwarfish legs of the horseman are typical of Yoruba equestrian figures.  What distinguishes this carving is the way in which the taut and elongated body of the rider contrasts with the naturalism of the head and skillful modeling of the face.  Herein lies its aesthetic power.  By combining distorted and naturalistic forms, the artist shapes our perception of the locus of man's power.  Our attention is drawn to the head and the quietly confident face of the horseman, the thrust and set of whose chin is enhanced by a slight beard.  And yet, our eyes also see the small, firm hands that grip the large fly whisk and hold the chain-link reins of the horse.  We feel and know the strength, the authority, the rider.  It is man who possesses the skill to master nature for his own ends.  Horseman and carver alike take control of the physical world, shaping it to make it conform to their perceptions of man's power.  But of the two, the carver's power is the greater, for he shapes and re-creates the image of man in terms of the mystery of the human gaze.  He enables us to see through the appearance of material things to the invisible reality.  The hand of the carver is, therefore, more powerful than the hand of the horseman.  Through the artist's vision and skill life is perpetually renewed."