A San family from the Kalahari region of southern Africa

In this life-size tableau, sculptor Malvina Hoffman portrays a family of the San ethnic group, who live in the Kalahari desert. A woman holds her baby on her back, and uses ostrich egg containers to store water. A man hunts with an arrow that may be poisoned with the larvae of leaf beetles.

American artist Malvina Hoffman (1885-1966) created 104 bronze figures, busts, and heads for the 1933 exhibition The Races of Mankind. Each sculpture was meant to portray an activity or facial characteristics representative of a racial type. Fifty of the artworks are featured in The Field Museum's 2016 exhibition Looking at Ourselves: Rethinking the Sculptures of Malvina Hoffman.