Kneeling Female Figure from Mali in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, February 2020

Title: Kneeling Female Figure

Date: 15th–16th century

Geography: Mali

Culture: Bankoni civilization

Medium: Terracotta, quartz

Dimensions: H. 24 13/16 × W. 13 3/4 × L. 16 9/16 in. (63 × 35 × 42 cm)

Classification: Ceramics-Sculpture

Credit Line: Private collection

Traces of a fourteenth- and fifteenth-century tradition of figurative representations in cast metal and fired clay have been found at a number of sites in the Bamana region near Bougouni and Diola. Bankoni elongated figures such as this one, featuring active warriors and a kneeling female figure, may be an artistic precursor to more recent Bamana wood sculptures devoted to similar subjects.


Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/736392