Reliquary Guardian Figure with Concave Face, Bakota

Carved in wood and sheathed in hammered copper and brass, sheet and wire, each guardian transforms a human face into a radiant geometry. Metal was precious and charged with meaning; its brilliance was believed to ward off harm and honour the dead.

These forms later captivated the artists of early twentieth-century Paris, and they remain icons of African art today.

The most sculptural of the group: a concave oval face beneath a projecting brow, as if the guardian peers out from within its own crown. Copper eyes and a pointed brass nose sit against a field of hammered metal, and a lattice of chevrons radiates across the oval coiffure and down the incised shaft.