Lamba / Losso figures

In 2008 the world of tribal arts was stunned by a little exposition held in the Parcours de Mondes by Pierre Amrouche: a lot of strong and roughly carved figures, some singles and other in couples, recently collected in Africa in an area less known than the "classic" african art zones. There were figures of ancestors, or bush spirits or twin couples from the north of Togo, from two lesser known populations described also by Frobenius at the beginning of '900, the Lamba and the Losso. Few items from that area were in the international museal collections (Berliner Wolkerkunde Museum) and they were completely unknown to the general public of collectors.
According to Amrouche, in the catalogue of the exposition, it's not possible, due to the too close interactions between the two populations, to attribute to Losso or to Lamba alone the items so he choose to call this corpus of objects "Lamba / Losso". He pointed also the fact the corpus itself is splitted into two main styles: one, more common, extremely geometric and stylized and the other more naturalistic.
I had in my collection five single figures and a couple (from the Amrouche exh.) but I've also had the luck to find recently two other examples, one single figure (26, 5 cm) and a couple male-female (29 and 30,5 cm), both very old, with a very dense patina, heavy and hard wood made.

Bibl.: Corps & Décors. Statuaire Lamba et Losso du Togo, 2008, Pierre Amrouche