Mende and Vai
Female Figure
Mende/Vai, 1900-1932
Scroll
Physical Qualities
Wood, beads and fiber, 100 x 21 x 18.4 cm.
Credit Line
Gift of Catherine O'Carroll Bussell and Robert Bruce Bussell, Arlington, Virginia
Object Number
1998.454a-b
Female figure with two large sagittal crests and hands held to sides; random stress marks on abdomen, breasts and forehead and decoration around the buttocks of X's and double lines; beaded apron around waist.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by gift, 1998; collected in Liberia between 1923-1929 by the parents of donor (Bruce Bussell): Conrad Turner Bussell and Pauline Bussell. Mr. Bussell was sent by the U.S. Government under President Calvin Coolidge to survey the boundaries of Liberia. He was, instead, made Supervisor of Customs by President Charles Dunbar Burgess King of Liberia, and later made Financial Advisor to President King. Mrs. Bussell arrived in 1926.
