Ancient and rare male waka sona statuette, sculpture of a diviner. It is often difficult to determine whether this is a blolo bian (a husband from beyond) or an asie usu (a genie from the bush), or another type of sculpture that is rarer, but this archaic sculpture can clearly be linked to a workshop or at least a center of style, whose hands with intertwined fingers and ribbons passing through the shoulders and crossing in the back are a characteristic of sculptures representing a diviner or linked to divination themselves. See for works from the same stylistic center with these characteristics, a statuette in the collections of the Musée du Quai Branly (inv. 73.1962.1.60), another in the collections of the Musée Barbier-Muller and formerly in the Joseph Muller collection (inv.107 / 105), a third in the Van de Velde collection published on page 31 of Susan Vogel's book : Baoule-Du Visible et de L'Invisible, or two other waka sona dressed in Western style with these same diviner headbands, one in the former Maine Durieu collection (lot 159 sale Binoche Giquello of 25 / 11 / 2021) and also one reproduced on page 151 Fig 69 in the catalog of the exhibition Utotombo - L'Art d'Afrique Noire dans les Collections privées Belges at the Palais des Beaux- Arts, Brussels. Baule, Ivory Coast. Wood, minor accident at the back, very beautiful and deep patina of use. H. 37 cm Provenance : Christian Debenest Collection Publication: Sale Pierre Bergé & Associés - La Collection d'un Amateur - April 8, 2016, lot 132