{
"data": {
"id": 146111,
"accession_number": "1971.297.1",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Male Figure from a Pair (asye usu), late 1800s\u2013early 1900s. Africa, West Africa, C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire, Baule-style carver. Wood, resin, glass beads, plant fiber, and metal; overall: 49.5 x 9.1 x 13 cm (19 1/2 x 3 9/16 x 5 1/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Katherine C. White, 1971.297.1",
"current_location": "108A African",
"title": "Male Figure from a Pair (asye usu)",
"creation_date": "late 1800s\u2013early 1900s",
"creation_date_earliest": 1880,
"creation_date_latest": 1935,
"artists_tags": [],
"culture": [
"Africa, West Africa, C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire, Baule-style carver"
],
"technique": "Wood, resin, glass beads, plant fiber, and metal",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "African Art",
"collection": "African Art",
"type": "Sculpture",
"measurements": "Overall: 49.5 x 9.1 x 13 cm (19 1/2 x 3 9/16 x 5 1/8 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"overall": {
"height": 0.495,
"height_inch": 19,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.5,
"width": 0.091,
"width_inch": 3,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.5625,
"depth": 0.13,
"depth_inch": 5,
"depth_inch_fraction": 0.125
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 184604,
"title": "Object in Focus: Male and Female Spirit Spouse Figures",
"description": "Object in Focus: Male and Female Spirit Spouse Figures. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 7-March 9, 2003).",
"opening_date": "2003-01-07T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 287107,
"title": "African Master Carvers: Known and Famous",
"description": "African Master Carvers: Known and Famous. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 26-July 16, 2017).",
"opening_date": "2017-03-26T04:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "CMA 1968: \"African Tribal Images: The Katherine White Reswick Collection,\" cat. no. 85, repr.",
"opening_date": "1968-01-01T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "CMA 1973: \"Year in Review 1972,\" CMA Bulletin LX (March, 1973), p. 107, no. 38, repr. p. 105.",
"opening_date": "1973-03-01T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "Cleveland, Ohio: The Cleveland Museum of Art; January 7- March 9, 2003. \" Object in Focus: Male (blolo bian) and Female (blolo bla) Spirit Partner Figures, Africa, Ivory Coast, Baule, c. 1930s [wood; 1971.297.1-2] \"",
"opening_date": "2003-01-07T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art (3/26/2017-7/16/2017); \u201cAfrican Master Carvers: Known and Famous\u201d.",
"opening_date": "2017-03-26T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Katherine C. White (aka Katherine Merkel, Katherine Reswick)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "?-1971",
"sortorder": null
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH by gift",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1971-",
"sortorder": 2
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [
"71.297",
"837.68"
],
"did_you_know": "Baule artists looked to the world around them to capture contemporary ideas and ideals of beauty; this figure's hairstyle would have been worn when the sculpture was carved.",
"description": "Baule figures carved as pairs usually represent untamed spirits of the wilderness called asye usu. These spirits may intervene in the lives of individuals by taking possession of them. If this possession does not result in madness, it can lead to the human host\u2019s becoming a diviner who can enter into a trance to reveal the causes of ailments and other misfortunes. People who feel their lives are being interrupted by the asye usu commission carvings representing idealized male and female forms whose grace and beauty in both anatomy and adornment will seduce the spirits and compel them to use the sculptures as their temporary homes.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60779292"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1971.297.1-male-figure-from-a-p"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Fagg, William, and Cleveland Museum of Art. 1968. African Tribal Images; the Katherine White Reswick Collection, no. 85. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art.",
"page_number": "",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "\"1972 Year in Review.\" The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 60, no. 3 (1973), cat. 38",
"page_number": "",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art, and Henry John Drewal. 1989. African Art : A Brief Guide to the Collection : The Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Museum, fig. 15.",
"page_number": "",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Petridis, Constantijn. South of the Sahara: selected works of African art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2003.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: cat. 17, p. 64 - 65",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "\u201cA Walking Tour: The entire new museum wing by wing, with curators calling out a few favorite works in the collection.\u201d Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 54, no. 1 (January/February 2014): 8-33.",
"page_number": "Reproduced and Mentioned: p. 12",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMM2014-01"
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1971.297.1",
"images": {
"annotation": null,
"web": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1971.297.1/1971.297.1_web.jpg",
"width": "468",
"height": "900",
"filesize": "85903",
"filename": "1971.297.1_web.jpg"
},
"print": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1971.297.1/1971.297.1_print.jpg",
"width": "1767",
"height": "3400",
"filesize": "655888",
"filename": "1971.297.1_print.jpg"
},
"full": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1971.297.1/1971.297.1_full.tif",
"width": "3144",
"height": "6048",
"filesize": "57076452",
"filename": "1971.297.1_full.tif"
}
},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Gift of Katherine C. White",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 146111,
"creators": [],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1971-12-11T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1880,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "late 1800s\u2013early 1900s",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "component",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": "1971.297",
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [
"Figure of a Spirit Husband",
"Figure Pair (Asye Usu)"
],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-05-01 06:50:39.329000"
}
}