DAKAKARI - Nigeria Commemorative stele Large terracotta with zoomorphic decoration on both sides. Ebony base. H: 80 - W: 47 cm Ebony base: 10.5 cm (H) - Sides: 21 cm. The Dakakari live in north-western Nigeria, in the region around the town of Zuru. Their social organisation was studied by English anthropologists in the first half of the 20th century. R. T. D. FitzGerald took an interest in the work of the Dakakari and published an article in 1944[1] on the production of terracotta figures. He divided this pottery into 6 groups, with group 4 comprising "human and animal figures not mounted on spherical bases". In his drawings, the anthropologist notes the different types encountered, and we find these characteristics on the statue in the Hélène Leloup Collection: a rider riding with a saddle, the presence of scarification marks, a stylised horse's head, and gaping mouths for the rider and his mount - a detail poetically interpreted as a song by the editors of Arts d'Afrique Noire in 1986[2] for the Dakakari exhibition at Galerie 62. The figures of horsemen described by FitzGerald are rare, and in 1986 the Garcias presented the largest group of this type. In the 1980s, Hélène Leloup took a particular interest in terracotta, as evidenced by her exhibition on the Djenné and Bankoni in 1986, and the acquisition of this statue at Galerie 62 that same year confirmed her interest in ancient terracottas that were outside the classical canon and had a strong history and symbolism. Thermoluminescence tests on Dakakari terracotta reveal that it is between 200 and 250 years old.