$546
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.
Auctioneer:
Skinner
Date:
2001-02-25
