Artist Isacci Etidlui
Title Untitled - Nude Pipe
Media grey stone carving
Size 2 x 6 x 4 in. / 5.1 x 15.2 x 10.2 cm.
Sold $350 Estimate $150 - $200

Notes
unsigned; handling marks noted

Reference
according to the consignor, 'After Isaacie Etidluie‘s straightforward birthing scene, here he splays the woman to serve as a pipe. The smoking material would be placed in her mouth, the viewer to inhale below. [I was advised it works. I have not resumed smoking.] This joins with the tradition of souvenir folk art, which often provided traders with ribaldry as well as cribbage boards and scrimshaw.'

Provenance
The Yacowar-Petrie collection, 50 years in the making, comes from two longtime Calgarians now retired in Victoria, B.C. Anne Petrie was the award-winning CBC TV journalist [Petrie on Prime, etc.] and author [Gone to an Aunt’s]. English/Film Studies Professor Maurice Yacowar had a double stint at the University of Calgary, as the founding [and the first fired] editor of the student paper, The Gauntlet, then as Dean of Fine Arts.