Lot: 221

98th Auction

Staff figure "kundul"

Nigeria, Wurkun

Provenance Size Starting price / estimated price
Wolfgang Ketterer, Munich, 6 May 1978, Lot 353 H: 15.9 inch This object is not available anymore.

wood, red pigment, encrusted patina, rest., base

"Kundul" figures almost always appear in male/ female pairs, mounted on iron spikes, enabling the sculpture to be stuck in the ground.

They were used as protection and in divination. They were frequently washed with liquid clay, "fed" with offerings of millet beer or millet porridge and rubbed with oil which explains the thickness of the patina.


Lebas, Alain (ed.), Arts of Nigeria in French Private Collections, Milan 2012, p. 286