Moba Wood Standing Figure, Based

Long arms, long legs, and a round blank face. It feels no need to explain.

This standing figure is Moba, from Togo, West Africa, in carved wood, mounted on a base. Moba carvers are known for upright figures of this spare kind, generally understood to be placed at shrines and associated with ancestors and protection. A round head sits directly atop a blocky chest. The arms hang free of the body, nearly to the hips, on either side of a thin column of torso. The legs taper to narrow ends. Rough tool marks cover a pale, weathered-looking surface. Thirty-two and a half inches high.

Few details. None of them missing.