Male Figure from a Pair (asye usu) (late 1800s–early 1900s): Art, History and Details

Male Figure from a Pair (asye usu) (late 1800s–early 1900s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Baule figures carved as pairs usually represent untamed spirits of the wilderness called asye usu. These spirits may intervene in the lives of individuals by taking possession of them. If this possession does not result in madness, it can lead to the human host’s becoming a diviner who can enter into a trance to reveal the causes of ailments and other misfortunes. People who feel their lives are being interrupted by the asye usu commission carvings representing idealized male and female forms whose grace and beauty in both anatomy and adornment will seduce the spirits and compel them to use the sculptures as their temporary homes.

Object facts

• Title: Male Figure from a Pair (asye usu)
• Date: late 1800s–early 1900s
• Culture: Africa, West Africa, Côte d’Ivoire, Baule-style carver
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: Wood, resin, glass beads, plant fiber, and metal
• Dimensions: Overall: 49.5 x 9.1 x 13 cm (19 1/2 x 3 9/16 x 5 1/8 in.)
• Collection: African Art
• Department: African Art
• Accession number: 1971.297.1

A detail from the museum

Baule artists looked to the world around them to capture contemporary ideas and ideals of beauty; this figure's hairstyle would have been worn when the sculpture was carved.

Collection credit

Gift of Katherine C. White

Further reading listed by the museum

• Fagg, William, and Cleveland Museum of Art. 1968. African Tribal Images; the Katherine White Reswick Collection, no. 85. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art.
• "1972 Year in Review." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 60, no. 3 (1973), cat. 38
• Cleveland Museum of Art, and Henry John Drewal. 1989. African Art : A Brief Guide to the Collection : The Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Museum, fig. 15.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.