Abstract EN:

This stylistic and historical study of the statues called "Anyi de Krinjabo" is an attempt to reunite and give sense to a set of objects which have been cut off from their original environement and dispersed all over the world. The study focuses on a specific type of statues, the Mma Anyi, which are anthropomorphic funerary figures in terra cotta whose production was stopped at the turn of the century. It almost replaces them on a more general framework that of the traditional portraiture in terra cotta of the south-east of the ivory coast and the south-west of ghana. The "Krinjabo-Anyi" style does exist, it is a royal art found in the kingdom of sanwi whose capital is Krinjabo. But this traditional practice was also found in other population before the anyi's arrival in the region. Thus this art does not belong exclusively to the latter and it is not the trace of their cultural and political hegemony. It was whide-spread on the whole forest area of "Akan", it covers three centuries and offers a great variety of styles. The study is made up of an ethnographic part which describes how the information and the corpus were collected. A stylistic part which analyses the shapes and sizes of the figures. Two historical parts which set this tradition one in the local history, the other in the regional and the international history and questions their possible interactions and influences.