Dogon Hair Pick Depicting Frog, Based

Somewhere, a long thin rod topped with a tiny stacked figure, standing very straight.

This hair pick depicting a frog is Dogon, from Mali, West Africa, and dates to the 20th century. It is bronze. Lost-wax casting, in which a wax model is covered in clay and replaced by molten metal, is the usual technique for West African bronzes of this scale. Pictured here, a slender, dark metal shaft that rises from a square black stand. Near the top, small carved figures stack up in a column, with a rounded head at the very peak. It is 2 inches wide, 2 deep and 8 high.

All the drama is up top, and the rest stays disciplined.