A very traditional inspiration for an African sculpture.

Sylvester is the most famous of Zimbabwe's surviving first-generation 'Shona' sculptors and his work sometimes has an almost 'tribal' feel - much more so than the work of the younger artists.

Fruit serpentine is the local Zimbabwean name for a very colourful, slightly translucent type of serpentine stone. It comes from Kwekwe and is of a similar hardness to the black serpentine known as springstone. The sparkles come from crystals of mica and iron pyrite in the stone.