Africa, West Africa, Sierra Leone, Sapi-style carver / possibly early 1400s
Figure
The Cleveland Museum of Art catalogs Figure as sculpture (Africa, West Africa, Sierra Leone, Sapi-style carver · possibly early 1400s).
Sapi sculptors worked in stone—like in this sculpture—as well as ivory.
A CLOSER LOOK
The museum identifies this sculpture as soapstone.
The museum's collection notes: The most varied group of soapstone figures and heads has been found in the homelands of the Kissi. Calling them pomda ("images of the dead"), the Kissi placed them in ancestral shrines, offering them the last seeds at sowing times and the first fruits of the harvest. However, the sculptures are believed to have been made centuries ago by the ancestors of the Kissi, the so-called Sapi people.
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The Cleveland Museum of ArtFigureOriginal explanation based on the sources above. Images carry their own reuse terms.