A beautiful and classic pair of Ibeji sculptures, female and male, finely sculpted with plenty of details.
In ancient times the family cult of the Ibeji, feared and believed to be harmful before 1750 and then re-evaluated as bearers of fortune and prosperity, provided that if one or both twins died, The sculpture would replace them to re-establish the duality interrupted by death. The treatment of twins had to be identical for both the living and the sculpture. For this reason the statue representing the dead twin continued to be looked after, washed, fed, decorated and carried on the back by the mother just like the living twin. In fact, it was believed that all this served to pacify the soul of the deceased twin.
The particular hairstyle, the somatic traits and the particular use of the shorts in the male figure, geographically place this pair of Ibeji within the Oyo State and more precisely in the Igbo-Ora district, Ibarapa.