figure (art)

Carved freestanding bird from two pieces of soft wood which are pierced and pinned together with wire. The knees are bent, the tail elongated and the head elongated and straight. The whole in incised with shallow grooves and relief on the wings, eye and beak. These areas are then highlighted with red and blue paint inlay against a white background. The bird bears a number of red triangular spines down its back and is pierced from one side to the other near the hip. This piercing is likely to have permitted the bird figures attachment to a larger assemblage.

Collection Information

These objects are only a part of our collections, of which there are more than 350,000 objects. This information comes from our collections database. Some of this is incomplete and there may be errors. This part of the website is also still under construction, so there may be some fields repeated or incorrectly formatted information.

The database sometimes uses language taken from historical documents to help research, which may now appear outdated and even offensive. The database also includes information on objects that are considered secret or sacred by some communities.

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