SNK 1212-48

Baule Heddle Pulley, Ivory Coast/Liberia

Stylised man

H: 17 cm (6,7″), W:9,5 cm (3,7″), D: 6 cm (2,4″)

The Baule represent one of the most important tribes of the Ivory Coast and may be the largest ethnic group in the region. The Baule are noted for decorating their everyday objects.
This heddle pulley is decorated with a human figure on top, which adds an aesthetic element to the technical process of weaving. The wood has a well worn dark-brown patina from much handling. This heddle pulley shows good age. The weaver who uses traditional methods employs so-called heddle pulleys to guide the cotton thread. They are decorated with motifs taken from the ancestral cult or tribal symbols. However heddle pulleys do not embody ritual meanings.

Provenance: Private Danish collection. It was either acquired directly from Lau (Laurence) Sunde’s collection in Copenhagen, which dates back to the 1940s, or Lau (Laurence) Sunde was an adviser to the collector.
Sunde had a “Etnografica” boutique in 1948, that became recognized among collectors as the most specialized boutique of its kind at the time. Tribal and oriental artefacts were purchased from private collectors as well as at auctions in Paris, Amsterdam and London, among other places.

Full description of Lau (Laurence) Sunde will be forwarded by request.

Click here for more information about the Baule people

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