Dan Female Figure Holding Spoons, Based

Among the Dan, the most generous woman in the village earns a spoon the size of a banner.

Oversized ladles honor the most generous and hospitable woman of a community. This Liberian figure, carved in the 20th century, takes up that theme with both arms raised high and a spoon in each hand. She stands twenty-three and a half inches tall, slim and upright, torso dark and glossy, face calm and refined.

The spoon bowls are whitened. Her legs are painted red and dotted white, and a strand of red and yellow beads circles her waist. Pale pigment marks the feet, and she rests on a wooden base.

Hospitality, honored. Overdue in most places.