Doll with plain body
Life Story
This figure may be a doll, though, as Fitzhugh and Kaplan explain (1982: fig. 190), such images were also used for other purposes. Inuit dolls often have only a head and body, the arms and legs of the costume supplying the limbs. The mouth and moustache markings suggest a male is represented, though the single hole in the lower lip does not correspond to the usual male twin labret form. The eyes and nostrils are drilled; the nose septum is broken.
Steven Hooper, 1997
Entry taken from Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection, Vol. 2: Pacific, African and Native North American Art, edited by Steven Hooper (Yale University Press, 1997) p. 247.
Provenance
Purchased by the Sainsbury Centre, University of East Anglia from Arbutus Limited on the advice of Robert Sainsbury in 1980 out of income from the Sainsbury Purchasing Fund.
Not on display
Title/Description: Doll with plain body
Measurements: h. 79 x w. 30 x d. 25 mm
Accession Number: 737
Historic Period: 19th century or earlier
Credit Line: Purchased with support from Robert and Lisa Sainsbury, 1980
