Early 20th Century Janus Two Faced Carved Figure

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Most figures ask you to look at them. This one is built to look back, in two directions at once. … Read more Most figures ask you to look at them. This one is built to look back, in two directions at once. Two faces share a single head here, set back to back beneath a tuft of natural raffia, each carved with the same quiet, deliberate expression and touched with a warm reddish pigment that's worn unevenly with age. Below, the hands come together at the chest in a clasped, composed gesture, the body tapering into a single rounded form set on a faceted black pedestal. Janus figures like this one appear across several Central and West African carving traditions, most closely associated with the Songye and Bakongo peoples of the Congo region, where the double face reads as a figure keeping watch on both sides of existence at once, the living and the ancestors, what's behind and what's ahead.
That's a genuinely rare thing to hold in one small sculpture. Set it somewhere it can actually be walked around, a console, an open shelf, anywhere both faces get their turn to be seen.

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