These minimalist sculptures of peculiar beauty are ritual objects created by the Adan (Adangbe, Dangbe) ethnic group.
The Adan are a small group of people who live in southeastern Ghana, close to the Togo border, along Lake Volta. Even though the people are mostly Christian, these figures are used in voodoo practices, as intermediaries for contact with various deities, invoked to offer their followers protection, luck and prosperity in their personal and family lives, as well as in their daily activities (hunting, fishing, trade). They are generally produced in wood by an unusual variety of sculptors — in most other African tribes there is only one sculptor in each village. This is what explains the diversity of shapes of these statuettes, representing people, animals and everyday objects.
Knowledge of this culture, still little studied and documented, was until recently confined to a restricted number of collectors and enthusiasts. In recent years, however, there has been a growing excitement at an international level around these sculptures, to the point that they are currently considered essential in the constitution of any good collection of tribal art.