African art Maternity sculpture, YombeD.R. Congo. . Cm 21,00 x 53,00. A wooden sculpture depicting motherhood (phembe).The subject is a mother, made according to the Yombe canons of beauty, who breastfeeds an infant and has a pointed hairstyle on her head typical in this type of work. Sculptures like this were used by the Yombe community to honor the mythical mother of a dynasty or during propitiatory rites related to the symbolic fertility of the entire community.