The Akua'ba fertility dolls, literally "welcome to the unborn child", were given to the Ashanti girls to propitiate their fertility and with a preparatory function to becoming mothers. The girls had to always take them with them, feed them, take care of them and never lose them or ruin them.
During pregnancy it was believed that the Akua ba would bring luck, health and beauty to the unborn child and after birth it was given to the younger sister of the mother.
Sculpture representative of all African art for synthesis, refinement and beauty, the Akua'ba often have a stylized body with arms, breasts and navel just hinted, rolls of fat around the neck to represent wealth and prosperity and a face disk, round and almost lunar flat, on which with a few skilful strokes are carved eyebrows, eyes, nose and mouth.
The quality of the fertility dolls of any ethnic group and especially of the Ashanti, is determined by the feeling of aesthetic perfection that the collector derives from observing the synthesis between geometric balance and refined beauty of minimal carving, without having the desire to change or move any line or curve.
It often happens to find in the Western collections Akua' ba beautiful and also very beautiful dolls, but in this case we are faced with an excellent Akua ba, as evidenced by the supreme work of geometric carving that characterizes the back of the head of this small masterpiece.
Painted several times, of great patina, with remarkable signs of use and a label written by hand at the back, on the base.