DAN SPOON
COTE D'IVOIRE
Estimate: £1,500 - £2,500
Auction: 13 March 2025 from 13:00 GMT
Description
carved wood, the handle formed of two legs, leading to a deep bowl, black lustrous patination, raised on a bespoke mount
Dimensions
48.5cm tall
Provenance
Private collection, London, United Kingdom, acquired from the below
Frantz Dufour, Galerie Kanem, Paris
Footnote
The Dan wunkirmian, or "spoon of the feast," is a ceremonial spoon from the Dan people of Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire in West Africa. These large, intricately carved objects are symbols of honour and community service, awarded to women who demonstrate exceptional hospitality, generosity, and leadership within their village.
Dan sculptors often incorporate human-like forms, drawing inspiration from other carvings such as masks and figures. This particular example beautifully abstracts the human form, the handle represents the lower half of a female body, while the bowl, rounded and polished, symbolically evokes the womb, ‘pregnant’ with rice as a symbol of abundance.
In 1926, a young Alberto Giacometti reimagined this association between a woman’s womb and a spoon’s bowl in his sculpture Spoon Woman (Femme Cuillère). Like many artists of his generation, Giacometti was familiar with and inspired by the innovative interpretations of the human form developed by West and Central African artists, whose works had begun appearing in Paris in the early 20th century. In this life-size bronze sculpture, considered one of his first mature works, Giacometti builds on the concept pioneered by Dan carvers, pushing it further into geometric abstraction.