FOR MALAGAN

Details

a fine and rare new ireland figure
for malagan
The male figure standing with outstretched arms, the face with encrusted black gum and inset seed pods to the cheeks, fibre to the head, the ears with pierced lobes and large projections above, a painted kapkap above the carved rib cage, the figure's feet resting on the back of an owl with outspread wings, another owl standing on top of the figure's head surmounted by a pierced element, an owl's head carved at his groin linked by a curved panel to the owl below, a further owl's head to each side, each holding in its beak a serpent, painted red, black and white, the figure and birds' heads each with shell opercula eyes, on tapered base
142cm. high

Provenance

Serge Brignoni

Literature

Rubin, W., Modernist Primitivism, in Rubin, W., (editor), Primitivism in 20th Century Art, New York, 1984, Vol I, p.2
Gianinazzi, C. and Giordano, C. (editors), Extra-European Cultures, The Serge and Graziella Brignoni Collection, Lugano, 1989, p.68 and 260, fig.388

Special notice

Vat rate of 17.5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium; the total amount payable is 137.5% of the hammer price.

Lot Essay

Cf. a similar figure with owls and outstretched arms from the collection of Gross-Herzog von Baden, Mannheim, later Arthur Speyer, Berlin, and now in the Barbier-Mueller Museum, Geneva (Gunn, M., Ritual Arts of Oceania. New Ireland, Milan, 1997, no.31). A figure with two owls and a black face, also with a painted kapkap, was collected in Beilifu on the south-west coast of Northern New Ireland, acquired for the Museum für Völkerkunder, Basel, in 1931 (Kaufmann, C., Ozeanische Kunst, Basel, 1980, no.198)

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