Polychrome Carved Wood Female Fertility Figure

Description:

Polychrome Carved Wood Female Fertility Figure, Woodbridge, New Jersey, early 20th century, the head with removable plug shaped as a phallus, painted features, with black stockinged legs, with stand, (plug possibly of later origin),ht. 5 3/4 in. N.B. A group of such figures were unearthed from beneath a Woodbridge gas station, and are believed to have been used in rituals by a fertility cult which practiced into the 1940s. Provenance: Aarne Anton/American Primitive Gallery. Literature: Other figures from the Woodbridge group are pictured in Roger Ricco and Frank Maresca's AMERICAN PRIMITIVE: DISCOVERIES IN FOLK SCULPTURE, (New York, 1988),p. 35, fig. 35, as well as in Milton Simpson's, FOLK EROTICA, (New York, 1994),p. 65.
Estimate $700-900

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