Mossi Doll by the Artist Zimwomdya Koudougou

This highly geometricized doll is published as item #479 in Thomas G. B. Wheelock’s Land of the Flying Masks: Art and Culture in Burkina Faso. According to Wheelock, the carver was Zimwomdya Koudougou of the Mossi village of Bonam in the Boulsa Region. He reportedly died in the early 1970s, shortly before this well used doll was collected. His son Somyogedé sold finished and unused dolls in the Boulsa market from the 1970s onwards. Boulsa dolls are larger than most other doll styles. They are also the most celebrated type in the West and therefore, logically, the most reproduced and faked. Authentic examples such as this one show outstanding wear and a deep patina resulting from a combination of its original finish (oils and fire), plus handling (fats and dirt), ambient dust and accumulations of soot from time spent in traditional Mossi homes which lack efficient fireplaces and chimneys.

9.5″