  About the Artwork
  
  
  The Baule people of West Africa believe every man or woman has a “spouse” in the spirit world — an individual with a name revealed through divination. The first act to nurture a fruitful bond with one’s otherworld mate is to commission a wooden “portrait” such as this one to serve as the spirit’s physical abode.

Images of spirit wives often include a naturalistic face, firm breasts, and a nicely arranged coiffure. Raised scars on the forehead and behind the neck are considered beautiful in Baule culture. Regular handling—cleaning, rubbing with oil, wiping with kaolin, re-dyeing, or painting—explains this sculpture’s beautiful patina. 

Interestingly, spirit spouses may enjoy greater privileges, including sexual matters, than real-world mates. Indeed, if an unmarried woman has a prior relationship with a spirit spouse, a formal public ritual transfers the otherworld partner’s sexual rights to her future flesh-and-blood husband before marriage. For a woman, the idea of an otherworld mate who desires her can be empowering, as she can maintain an identity separate from her husband’s.
  
  
  Title
  Female Figure
  
  
  Artwork Date
  between 1850 and 1950
  
  Artist
  ----------
  
  
  
  Life Dates
  ----------
  
  
  
  
  Nationality
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events.
  Some definitions include:
  Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation.
  
  
  
  African
  
  
  
  Culture
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group.
  
  
  
  
  Baule
  
  
  Medium
  Wood
  
  
  Dimensions
  Overall: 12 1/4 × 3 1/4 × 3 1/4 inches (31.1 × 8.3 × 8.3 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Sculpture
  
  
  Department
  African Art
  
  
  Credit
  Founders Society Purchase, Eleanor Clay Ford Fund for African Art
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  79.19
  
  
  Copyright
  ----------
