The Bauls (Baoules, Bawuls), like other ethnic groups in Africa, often depict motherhood in art in the form of large-breasted nursing women, whether in carved wood, lost-wax bronze, ivory, stone or terracotta.
The Bauls are a Melano-African ethnic group of the Akan ethnic-linguistic group; they are farmers of animist religion living in Côte d'Ivoire (2.5 million, 8% of the population).

The theme of motherhood is universal and recurrent in art throughout black Africa. African maternity statues do not usually express the emotional bonds between mother and child, as they symbolise the fertility of women and the earth, belong to the domain of the sacred and are often displayed on an altar. The mothers are in a hieratic position, very well sculpted, while the child, often a small adult, is barely sketched, especially the body, and there are almost never any glances between mother and child.

In many African ethnicities, the left side of the body is associated with the sacred: in most black African maternity wards, the child is positioned to the left of the mother or suckling from the left breast, which is not the case with this statue.