Dogon Door with Two Breasts, Based

A door with breasts. Among the Dogon, this was practical thinking about food and life.

This door with two breasts, on a base, is Dogon, from Mali in West Africa, early to mid 20th century, in carved wood. Dogon doors closed houses and granaries, where the harvest was stored, and carved imagery on them is widely read as an appeal to fertility, ancestors and protection. Here the decoration is stripped to one idea: two full breasts rising from a single plank at its center. The pale wood is gently bowed and looks weathered, with small holes along one side and a tall pivot peg at the corner. It stands 61.5 inches high and 15 wide.

Few doors state their purpose so plainly.