This serving vessel features a mother, child, and bowl with a lid in the form of a chicken. Evoking hospitality, the offering pose of the kneeling female suggests that the object was designed for use in a public room in the owner's home. The bowl probably held kola nuts, a tropical edible, or other offerings traditionally provided to guests.

The mother wears a prominent necklace, while the child has small boots. The carver devised pleasing and subtle relationships among the sculpture's elements. The work is a handsome example of cultural cross-pollination among African peoples. In the early 20th century, Yoruba laborers from Nigeria traveled hundreds of miles west to another British colony, Sierra Leone, for work. A quintessential Yoruba object rendered in a style common to the Vai people of the Sierra Leone, this bowl fuses two distinct artistic traditions. Offering bowls depicting a kneeling mother and child are a common Yoruba motif, while Vai carvings are characterized by the shiny black finish, rounded proportions, and cornrow hairstyles notable in this figure. Recent research suggests that a Yoruba resident in Sierra Leone commissioned a Vai carver to produce this remarkable hybrid piece.

Power and awareness lie with the mother; the child's image is proof of her ability and the image of continuity.
-Scholar Martha J. Ehrlich, 1996