240647 - Antique Terracotta Djenne female sculpture - Mali

Antique Terracotta Djenne Female sculpture - Mali.
This superb and highly characteristic Djenee sculpture measures 28 cm high.This Djenne sculpture was collected in my private collection in 1991.
This intriguing piece of sculpture is made of terracotta by the Djenne people of Mali. It depicts a female body. The material used was worked skillfully by the Djenne artisans, and is the results today of a truly distiguinshed works of art in the technique of ceramic art. Djenne was once a prospering city which was also once the trade center of this region and it was located at the the Inland Delta of the Niger River which was the heart of the Mali Empire between the 12th and 16th centuries. The Djenne civilization are precursors to the Dogon of Mali.Djenné, capital of the Circle of the same name, located 130 km southwest of the regional capital Mopti and about 570 km northeast of the national capital Bamako, is one of the oldest cities in sub-Saharan Africa. Inhabited since 250 BC. BC the site of Djenné developed into a market and an important city for the trans-Saharan gold trade. In the 15th and 16th centuries the city was a center for the spread of Islam. Characterized by an intensive and remarkable land use, especially in terms of architecture, the city is known for its mosque, its civil structures, its monumental houses with carefully composed facades and its urban framework. The traditional dwellings, adapted to seasonal flooding, are built on small hills, the annual flooding of the Niger and its tributaries being an essential natural phenomenon both in the Djenné region and in the entire interior of the delta.