Gold Baule Face Pendant #2

Gorgeous face pendant made of gold.  This rare pendant is made in the "Lost Wax" technique of the Baule peoples of the Ivory Coast, in West Africa.  

Baule castings are some of the most beautiful in world and this one is particularly special because of its gold content, which gives the face a particularly lovely bright shine.  The face has a traditional woven woman's hairdo, with several ritual scars on the cheek that were traditionally thought to enhance beauty.  

One of the best things about this type of art is that you can see the evidence that this is hand-made.  On this particular pendant, you can see where the pendant was detached from the tubes that carried the molten metal through the clay mold.  The molding mark is just below the lip.  While the mold mark is visible from the front, it's not very noticeable.

This pendant weighs 35.0 grams.  Our estimate is that the gold is somewhere between 8k - 12k.  So for pure scrap value (heaven forfend!), gold of this quality is worth about $15 per gram (based on a pure gold value of about $40/gram).  So that's about $525 worth of gold.  

The pendant measures 56 mm high (not including the bale) by 40 mm wide (at her widest point).  The pendant also has a nice three-dimensional quality, measuring approximate 13 mm in depth.