Reliquary Guardian Figure with Arched Crest, 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.

A horseshoe arch, studded with bosses and bound with wire, rises over broad lateral wings of finely cross-hatched metal. The almond-shaped face carries domed eyes and a ridge nose ending in a ring, with a dotted lozenge on the chin, and the shaft descends to a bilobed base ringed with wire. On the reverse, a small face is carved in relief within a lozenge.