This is a beautiful african soapstone figurine representative of mother and child playing. The hand crafted touch of artisan skill creates variation in colour, size, and design. Each beautiful figurine is made of natural soapstone and is a unique original work of art with no two pieces looking exactly alike. Great for a babies room, a gift.Vintage, MCM Story Behind the Art: Each sculpture is artfully hand-carved from a single piece of Kisii soapstone, found only in the hills of southwestern Kenya. Mining the soapstone from surface hills is a labor-intensive process, using little to no machinery. Laborers works with shovels, picks, axes and machetes to carve out large soapstone chucks, which are then carved into beautiful art. Soapstone is mined from great pits in the area surrounding Kiisi, Kenya. The mined soapstone is then delivered to carvers who carve sculptures from the natural stone for the wholesale market, the color of which ranges from cream, to pink, to brown, to yellow, to black, to a marbling of all of them. Once carved, the craftspeople smooth rough edges of the soapstone with sandpaper dipped in water and polish the piece to a high gloss or paint African motifs in brilliant colors with etched accents.