This fine and imposing object is Louis Perrois's prime object in his analysis of the Hombo sub-style of the Hemba expression. It is centered in the northeastern region of Hemba territory (Perrois, 1977, p. 37). The distinguishing features of the expression which are well represented here are the projecting, sharply serrated forms of the eyebrows, beard and shoulders, the elongated torso and the biesected, lobed coiffure. The smooth, more naturalistic features of the better known Hemba figures are replaced here by a more dynamic aesthetic. The original adze markes which have been left add an additional sense of immediacy to this work.

Perrois identifies only two other Hombo style figures, a sculpture of a chief carrying a staff in the Frum collection (ibid., p. 301), and a much damaged figure in an unidentified private collection (ibid., p. 360, no. 16). When he selected this object for inclusion in the Perspectives exhibition, the artist Romaire Bearden wrote of it in part as follows: "I like this very much because of it being shaped out of these triangles: the nose, the head, and almost the lips, and then down here in the legs. Here again the man with the beard seems to be just so right... (Baldwin et. al., 1987, p. 76)."