.jpg?w=1)
GABON
Details
Tête de reliquaire Fang, angokh-nlo-byeri
Fang reliquary head, angokh-nlo-byeri
Gabon
Socle par Kichizô Inagaki (1876-1951), Paris
Hauteur: 38.5 cm. (15¼ in.)
Fang reliquary head, angokh-nlo-byeri
Gabon
Socle par Kichizô Inagaki (1876-1951), Paris
Hauteur: 38.5 cm. (15¼ in.)
Provenance
Merton Simpson, New York
Daniel Hourdé, Paris
Patricia Withofs, Londres
Sotheby's, Londres, vente privée
Collection Rudolf et Leonore Blum, acquise auprès de cette dernière en décembre 1986
Daniel Hourdé, Paris
Patricia Withofs, Londres
Sotheby's, Londres, vente privée
Collection Rudolf et Leonore Blum, acquise auprès de cette dernière en décembre 1986
Special notice
ƒ: In addition to the regular Buyer’s premium, a commission of 5.5%
inclusive of VAT of the hammer price will be charged to the buyer.
It will be refunded to the Buyer upon proof of export of the lot
outside the European Union within the legal time limit.
(Please refer to section VAT refunds)
Further details
Art of Gabon from the Blum collection: The Power of Ancestors
By Louis Perrois
The common character of this exceptional group of Gabon works of arts, apart from their great age and quality, is their direct link with the power of the ancestors and those of the spirits. These are reliquary figures, with both a religious and social function, and emblems of prestige. The works originate from different people along the Ogooue basin, some north of the equator - the Fang -, others to the south - the Punu and Sangu-, and others in the south-east - the Kota.
Fang Head (lot 39)
The Blum Fang head, of great classic quality with a satiny, black patina, is a magnificent example of an agokh-nlo-byeri, a ritual effigy of the ancestor's cult. The Fang, from Equatorial Africa (Southern Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Northern Gabon), used to follow animist religious practices and would form cults of the ancestors, known as byeri, which lead them to create symbolic representations of the deceased in the form of wooden figures or heads. The latter, often very old, are perched on a long monoxyle peduncle. They are called agokh-nlo-byeri - literally " entire head of the ancestor " - as opposed to the skull fragments such as skullcaps, mandible or teeth that are preserved in the reliquaries. The heads are more rare than the complete figures and in general particularly well-carved. These ritual effigies, easy to transport during migratory moves, were used to magically guard the ancestral human relics preserved in tall cylindrical bark boxes into which each family head was deposited. Generation after generation, the skulls served as the guarantor of genealogical identity and of the socio-political importance of each clan in a society where familial groups were independent and often rivals. The agokh-nlo-byeri heads stayed hidden in the lineage chief's hut. As with the human skull fragments, the carved heads were periodically coated with palm oil, sacrificial blood and ba powder, which is a mixture of oil and padouk wood and creates a red coating as a sign of its sacred nature.
The magical function of the heads and figures were identical from north to south of the "Pahouin" country, from Southern Cameroon to Gabon and to Rio Muni. All the Fang heads, that are more or less documented, were found among the southern Fang, the Fang from the Gabon estuary, the ones from the Como valley - from the Remboue, the Okano and the Abanga (Fang Meke), and also from the southern Betsi Fang - from Woleu-Ntem and from the right side of the Ogooue river. The pastor-ethnographer Fernand Grébert (1886-1956) noticed the co-existence of heads, torsos and figures within the Ogooue Fang, which he abundantly reproduced in his notebooks (see Le Gabon de Fernand Grébert, 1913-1932, Geneva, 2003, folio 95, 143, 146, 197, 222, 256, 306), an ethnographical fact still recognized in the 1920'-1930' that, fortunately, was saved from oblivion.
The Blum Fang head is a work of art of great quality, thanks to its sophisticated volumes - the head with an expansive and round forehead, a concave face with a classic pouting mouth, a halo coiffure framing the face and thick braids at the crown - as well as its perfectly polished surfaces. It was sculpted by a talented master-carver, a ngengang. To carve such a piece, he had to be initiated, not only for the use of tools, but also to be able to deal with the occult forces involved in this particular work. Carving the image of a deceased person was a ritual act in itself. As elsewhere in Africa, the notion of beauty in appearance and of goodness as moral quality, and also of social and political power, were intricately linked.
Fang Figure (lot 42)
The other Fang work of art, the full figure eyema byeri, is from the Mvai style, a small "Pangwe" (Fang) group settled in the extreme north of Gabon, close to Cameroon, in the upper basin of the Ntem river. The Mvai ancestor effigies can be recognized at first sight: a quite stocky and thick body with a barrel abdomen sometimes decorated with geometric scarifications, arms along the body with highly stylized hands fixed to the plexus, the seated position of the lower limbs with curvilinear thighs and thick bi-tronconical calves, an impressive head with a perfectly round forehead crowned with a classical tri-crested coiffure. Two comparable figures of this style or variant were presented and also named by Tessmann himself in his publication Die Pangwe, volume II, abb.44 (see the two objects in the lower right, collected circa 1905, Museum fr Vlkerkunde, Lbeck); the magnificent masculine figure was published shortly afterward by Ernst Fuhrmann in Africa, 1922, p.75.
The Blum Fang reliquary figure, from the former Joseph Mueller collection, is similar to these archetypical objects. With its relatively modest dimension, this traditional byeri masculine effigy is a perfect example of the Mvai production: the body divided into thirds (head, trunk, lower limbs) expresses a slender and elegant strength - a flared trunk with a protruding navel and well-carved pectorals, the neck of the same diameter as the upper torso, thick arms with stylized hands in triangle joined underneath the plexus, strong shoulders. The head shows a wide and round forehead in a quarter-spherical form, on top of hollowed eyebrows with large coffee-bean shaped eyes, framing a thin nose. Through the protruding mouth with slim lips appear carved pointy teeth. The tri-crested coiffure is fixed to a high and round forehead and falls over the neck towards the shoulders. The legs are fixed to the posterior peduncle. This projection was set and attached with vegetal or leather links to the lid of the bark reliquary box which preserved the ancestors' skull - nsekh-byeri and are typical among southern Fang figures, with diagonal thighs and curvilinear volumes and thick oversized calves with a more angular treatment, especially the feet. The semi-seated position confers to a tense and powerful attitude appropriate to the function of this guardian of magical relics.
Because of its volumes and surface, we can directly compare the Blum Fang figure to the well-known Brooklyn Museum's effigy (Frank L. Babott Fund, inv.51.3, H=58,4 cm.), with the same light brown patina; as well as a magnificent fragment of a female figure from the former Helena Rubinstein collection (sale catalogue, New York, 1966, n.209, H=54,5 cm. in Perrois, La statuaire fan, Gabon, 1972, p.86).
A Fang Spoon (lot 42)
For the Fang, some daily tools, such as spoons, had great symbolic importance. Some were used to administrate magical remedies or special potions during initiation rituals. These objects were personal and carefully guarded by their owners or his heirs. Sometimes, they were buried with them. Most of them are of highly precious, such as the Blum Fang spoon with its spiraling double-monoxyle handle decorated with a small head, evoking an ancestor.
A Punu prestige emblem from southern Gabon (lot 40)
Punu from southern Gabon, most celebrated for their white okuyi masks, have also developed a remarkable decorative art, such as doors or shutters carved in high relief (see Punu, 2008, pl.56), spoons (ibid., pl.61), musical instruments (ibid, pl.59), bellows (ibid., pl.60) and hunting charms (ibid., pl.57, 58). We can also list certain prestige artifacts, such as scepters with carved handles, fly-whisks and fans with anthropomorphic handles. The Blum Punu fan is of perfect quality with its slender body, satiny black surface, dissymmetric position of the arms - the left forearm is placed on the stomach - a stretched out neck and a face recalling those of the okuyi masks, with their tall protruding eyes and crested coiffure.
A mbumba bwete from the Central Gabon Sangu (lot 43)
The Blum reliquary figure, with its perfectly balanced minimalism, nearly cubist in its sculptural composition, is a great example of Sango art (also known in situ as Sangu, plural ma-sangu), a Central Gabon people, situated in the Ogooue river curl. This type of effigy is known since an early 20th publication showing a "fetishor", holding a ritual reed pipe and posing behind a group of reliquary boxes, skulls and three funerary figures set into bags wrapped with hide lashes (mbumba-bwete). The picture has been taken by a missionary from the Father of the Holy Spirit, R.P. Georges Patron (see Perrois, Art ancestral du Gabon, Geneva, 1985, p.120; Dapper, Gabon, Présence des esprits, p.85).
These reliquary figures with small faces covered with brass and iron strips, are made out of a anthropomorphic wooden figure decorated with metal, with a long cylindrical neck ending by in a hollowed diamond-shape. They were set into reliquary packages, tightly tied up with vegetal and leather links, holding the secret ingredients. This "charge" (called bilongo) which had to stay hidden to the laymen, contained human bone fragments, or those of animals, snail shells, etc., and other magical and symbolic medicine which provided to the reliquary its socio-religious efficiency. The "Sango" style or "Sangu" can be considered as well established not only because of early missionary photographs before 1914 but also thanks to the later scientific research, especially those of the anthropologist Jacques Millot in 1961 (Musée de l'Homme mission - ""De Pointe-Noire au pays Tsogo" in Objets et Mondes, I, 3-4, pp.65-80), or others, more recent (see L'esprit de la fort", 1997, pp.117 and 220).
All these Sangu examples were seen and sometimes collected in the great forest region of Mount Chaillu northern foothills, region of the Offoue and Lolo rivers, two branches of the Ogooue left bank, not far from the actual city of Koulamoutou, an area located in the eastern side of the Tsogho country and northern side of the Povi (Vuvi) and Ndzebi lands, in direct contact with the Aduma villages of the river, on the western limit of the "Kota" area (see Perrois, Ancêtres Kota, 2011).
On an early engraving of the Tour du Monde revue, 1887 (II, p.328), taken from sketches drawn by the explorer Giacomo di Brazza, younger brother of the great explorer (see Arts du Gabon, 1979, p.121), we can see that underneath the canopy-sanctuary of the "Kota" village, there is a group of figures in different regional sub-styles: "ondoumbo" (ndumu) - this is certainly the piece from the Musée de l'Homme Quai Branly -, "Obamba" - with a crossed oval face and wrapping hair dress - and "Sangu" on the left side. In fact, it is possible that the engraving published after the expedition is a "synthesis" realized by the engraver based on several original sketches done in different villages of the middle Ogooue valley between Lastoursville and Franceville, region where Brazza met along the river different peoples including the Ossyeba (Bosheba or oriental Fang), the Shimba, the Bawanzi, the Aduma, the Shake, the Bawumbu, etc But the Sangu, even if they have a common origin with the Eshira from the Ngounie, according to oral tradition, and set in retreat on the Central Gabon high hills, were in constant trading relationships with the Bawanzi and the Aduma, which allowed them the access to the main commercial route, the Ogooue river.
Moreover, we have to remember that the mbumba-bwete isn't a lineage emblem with ethnic, familial or personal character, as with the reliquary figures from the Fang and other Kota (Obamba and Wumbu), rather they are instruments of personal magical power that has a decisive socio-politic value. It could be acquired, traded or even taken away by neighboring tribes.
Three Eastern Gabon Kota Figures from the Blum collection (lot 41, 44, 46)
These three reliquary figures show examples among the most expressive funerary art from the eastern Gabon Kota and those from the Congo borders. The janus figure with its missing base is a mbulu-viti of remarkable quality from the southern Kota, Obamba or Wumbu. The main face is convex with a tall forehead with a headband decorated with diamond-shaped scarifications, crossed by a plaque forming a long longitudinal ridge figuring the short nose. The face itself is heart-shaped with two hollowed orbits, marked with high-relief eyebrows, and wide stylized eyes, decorated by punctiform motifs. The squared mouth, framed by diagonals ridges engraved in the metal shows sharp teeth, giving to the effigy a severe expression. The coiffure, with a specific shape, offers a crescent finial with its extremities turned-down towards the lateral sides treated as triangles. On the backside, another face in almond-shape, concave and slightly in high relief, completely covered with brass strips (horizontal and diagonal) and with a axial plaque supporting the protruding nose. The backside condition of the hair dress certifies the great age of the figure.
The second Kota figure, is an ancestor effigy mbulu ngulu, a classical type from the Upper-Ogooue Obamba. Its stretched oval-shaped face, mainly decorated with small brass strips organized in quarters around a cross made out of two metallic plaques supporting wide almond-shaped eyes with nailed pupils and a pointed, sharp nose, is characteristic of the northern Obamba, those from the north of Franceville close to the Shamaye and other Mahongwe. The hair dress is particularly wide with its high crescent finial decorated with a series of round motives, along with wide lateral crest ending in four cylindrical pendants, a sign of social importance of the lineage who owned this figure. The hollowed diamond-shape base is ornamented with thick striped plaques.
The third figure from the Blum collection, an Obamba variant with a convex forehead is also an mbulu ngulu. With its tall scale and majestic look, this effigy combines the use of thin striped decoration, on the lower part of the face, with no mouth, and finely hammered plaques, on the sphere-quarter volume forehead and on its crest. The latter shows a crescent finial marked by an axial ridge framed by round elements, this element indicates a relationship to the lineage to which the figure belonged. The face, in this central area, is minimalist: two large eyes and a short nose, with an original asymmetrical structure of the base with its superior segments, the "shoulders", ornamented with brass.
These eight objects, fortunately and patiently gathered over the years by Rudolf and Leonore Blum, each testify in their own way, the high spirituality of the common heritage of these Bantou groups from the great Equatorial forest. From ancestor figures to prestige emblems, all express through their shapes or ornament, or even their added magical ingredients, the same desire to establish contact with spirits in the hereafter to maintain the social links of people here below, and, if possible, to support their descendants with the mysterious power of the ancestors.
By Louis Perrois
The common character of this exceptional group of Gabon works of arts, apart from their great age and quality, is their direct link with the power of the ancestors and those of the spirits. These are reliquary figures, with both a religious and social function, and emblems of prestige. The works originate from different people along the Ogooue basin, some north of the equator - the Fang -, others to the south - the Punu and Sangu-, and others in the south-east - the Kota.
Fang Head (lot 39)
The Blum Fang head, of great classic quality with a satiny, black patina, is a magnificent example of an agokh-nlo-byeri, a ritual effigy of the ancestor's cult. The Fang, from Equatorial Africa (Southern Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Northern Gabon), used to follow animist religious practices and would form cults of the ancestors, known as byeri, which lead them to create symbolic representations of the deceased in the form of wooden figures or heads. The latter, often very old, are perched on a long monoxyle peduncle. They are called agokh-nlo-byeri - literally " entire head of the ancestor " - as opposed to the skull fragments such as skullcaps, mandible or teeth that are preserved in the reliquaries. The heads are more rare than the complete figures and in general particularly well-carved. These ritual effigies, easy to transport during migratory moves, were used to magically guard the ancestral human relics preserved in tall cylindrical bark boxes into which each family head was deposited. Generation after generation, the skulls served as the guarantor of genealogical identity and of the socio-political importance of each clan in a society where familial groups were independent and often rivals. The agokh-nlo-byeri heads stayed hidden in the lineage chief's hut. As with the human skull fragments, the carved heads were periodically coated with palm oil, sacrificial blood and ba powder, which is a mixture of oil and padouk wood and creates a red coating as a sign of its sacred nature.
The magical function of the heads and figures were identical from north to south of the "Pahouin" country, from Southern Cameroon to Gabon and to Rio Muni. All the Fang heads, that are more or less documented, were found among the southern Fang, the Fang from the Gabon estuary, the ones from the Como valley - from the Remboue, the Okano and the Abanga (Fang Meke), and also from the southern Betsi Fang - from Woleu-Ntem and from the right side of the Ogooue river. The pastor-ethnographer Fernand Grébert (1886-1956) noticed the co-existence of heads, torsos and figures within the Ogooue Fang, which he abundantly reproduced in his notebooks (see Le Gabon de Fernand Grébert, 1913-1932, Geneva, 2003, folio 95, 143, 146, 197, 222, 256, 306), an ethnographical fact still recognized in the 1920'-1930' that, fortunately, was saved from oblivion.
The Blum Fang head is a work of art of great quality, thanks to its sophisticated volumes - the head with an expansive and round forehead, a concave face with a classic pouting mouth, a halo coiffure framing the face and thick braids at the crown - as well as its perfectly polished surfaces. It was sculpted by a talented master-carver, a ngengang. To carve such a piece, he had to be initiated, not only for the use of tools, but also to be able to deal with the occult forces involved in this particular work. Carving the image of a deceased person was a ritual act in itself. As elsewhere in Africa, the notion of beauty in appearance and of goodness as moral quality, and also of social and political power, were intricately linked.
Fang Figure (lot 42)
The other Fang work of art, the full figure eyema byeri, is from the Mvai style, a small "Pangwe" (Fang) group settled in the extreme north of Gabon, close to Cameroon, in the upper basin of the Ntem river. The Mvai ancestor effigies can be recognized at first sight: a quite stocky and thick body with a barrel abdomen sometimes decorated with geometric scarifications, arms along the body with highly stylized hands fixed to the plexus, the seated position of the lower limbs with curvilinear thighs and thick bi-tronconical calves, an impressive head with a perfectly round forehead crowned with a classical tri-crested coiffure. Two comparable figures of this style or variant were presented and also named by Tessmann himself in his publication Die Pangwe, volume II, abb.44 (see the two objects in the lower right, collected circa 1905, Museum fr Vlkerkunde, Lbeck); the magnificent masculine figure was published shortly afterward by Ernst Fuhrmann in Africa, 1922, p.75.
The Blum Fang reliquary figure, from the former Joseph Mueller collection, is similar to these archetypical objects. With its relatively modest dimension, this traditional byeri masculine effigy is a perfect example of the Mvai production: the body divided into thirds (head, trunk, lower limbs) expresses a slender and elegant strength - a flared trunk with a protruding navel and well-carved pectorals, the neck of the same diameter as the upper torso, thick arms with stylized hands in triangle joined underneath the plexus, strong shoulders. The head shows a wide and round forehead in a quarter-spherical form, on top of hollowed eyebrows with large coffee-bean shaped eyes, framing a thin nose. Through the protruding mouth with slim lips appear carved pointy teeth. The tri-crested coiffure is fixed to a high and round forehead and falls over the neck towards the shoulders. The legs are fixed to the posterior peduncle. This projection was set and attached with vegetal or leather links to the lid of the bark reliquary box which preserved the ancestors' skull - nsekh-byeri and are typical among southern Fang figures, with diagonal thighs and curvilinear volumes and thick oversized calves with a more angular treatment, especially the feet. The semi-seated position confers to a tense and powerful attitude appropriate to the function of this guardian of magical relics.
Because of its volumes and surface, we can directly compare the Blum Fang figure to the well-known Brooklyn Museum's effigy (Frank L. Babott Fund, inv.51.3, H=58,4 cm.), with the same light brown patina; as well as a magnificent fragment of a female figure from the former Helena Rubinstein collection (sale catalogue, New York, 1966, n.209, H=54,5 cm. in Perrois, La statuaire fan, Gabon, 1972, p.86).
A Fang Spoon (lot 42)
For the Fang, some daily tools, such as spoons, had great symbolic importance. Some were used to administrate magical remedies or special potions during initiation rituals. These objects were personal and carefully guarded by their owners or his heirs. Sometimes, they were buried with them. Most of them are of highly precious, such as the Blum Fang spoon with its spiraling double-monoxyle handle decorated with a small head, evoking an ancestor.
A Punu prestige emblem from southern Gabon (lot 40)
Punu from southern Gabon, most celebrated for their white okuyi masks, have also developed a remarkable decorative art, such as doors or shutters carved in high relief (see Punu, 2008, pl.56), spoons (ibid., pl.61), musical instruments (ibid, pl.59), bellows (ibid., pl.60) and hunting charms (ibid., pl.57, 58). We can also list certain prestige artifacts, such as scepters with carved handles, fly-whisks and fans with anthropomorphic handles. The Blum Punu fan is of perfect quality with its slender body, satiny black surface, dissymmetric position of the arms - the left forearm is placed on the stomach - a stretched out neck and a face recalling those of the okuyi masks, with their tall protruding eyes and crested coiffure.
A mbumba bwete from the Central Gabon Sangu (lot 43)
The Blum reliquary figure, with its perfectly balanced minimalism, nearly cubist in its sculptural composition, is a great example of Sango art (also known in situ as Sangu, plural ma-sangu), a Central Gabon people, situated in the Ogooue river curl. This type of effigy is known since an early 20th publication showing a "fetishor", holding a ritual reed pipe and posing behind a group of reliquary boxes, skulls and three funerary figures set into bags wrapped with hide lashes (mbumba-bwete). The picture has been taken by a missionary from the Father of the Holy Spirit, R.P. Georges Patron (see Perrois, Art ancestral du Gabon, Geneva, 1985, p.120; Dapper, Gabon, Présence des esprits, p.85).
These reliquary figures with small faces covered with brass and iron strips, are made out of a anthropomorphic wooden figure decorated with metal, with a long cylindrical neck ending by in a hollowed diamond-shape. They were set into reliquary packages, tightly tied up with vegetal and leather links, holding the secret ingredients. This "charge" (called bilongo) which had to stay hidden to the laymen, contained human bone fragments, or those of animals, snail shells, etc., and other magical and symbolic medicine which provided to the reliquary its socio-religious efficiency. The "Sango" style or "Sangu" can be considered as well established not only because of early missionary photographs before 1914 but also thanks to the later scientific research, especially those of the anthropologist Jacques Millot in 1961 (Musée de l'Homme mission - ""De Pointe-Noire au pays Tsogo" in Objets et Mondes, I, 3-4, pp.65-80), or others, more recent (see L'esprit de la fort", 1997, pp.117 and 220).
All these Sangu examples were seen and sometimes collected in the great forest region of Mount Chaillu northern foothills, region of the Offoue and Lolo rivers, two branches of the Ogooue left bank, not far from the actual city of Koulamoutou, an area located in the eastern side of the Tsogho country and northern side of the Povi (Vuvi) and Ndzebi lands, in direct contact with the Aduma villages of the river, on the western limit of the "Kota" area (see Perrois, Ancêtres Kota, 2011).
On an early engraving of the Tour du Monde revue, 1887 (II, p.328), taken from sketches drawn by the explorer Giacomo di Brazza, younger brother of the great explorer (see Arts du Gabon, 1979, p.121), we can see that underneath the canopy-sanctuary of the "Kota" village, there is a group of figures in different regional sub-styles: "ondoumbo" (ndumu) - this is certainly the piece from the Musée de l'Homme Quai Branly -, "Obamba" - with a crossed oval face and wrapping hair dress - and "Sangu" on the left side. In fact, it is possible that the engraving published after the expedition is a "synthesis" realized by the engraver based on several original sketches done in different villages of the middle Ogooue valley between Lastoursville and Franceville, region where Brazza met along the river different peoples including the Ossyeba (Bosheba or oriental Fang), the Shimba, the Bawanzi, the Aduma, the Shake, the Bawumbu, etc But the Sangu, even if they have a common origin with the Eshira from the Ngounie, according to oral tradition, and set in retreat on the Central Gabon high hills, were in constant trading relationships with the Bawanzi and the Aduma, which allowed them the access to the main commercial route, the Ogooue river.
Moreover, we have to remember that the mbumba-bwete isn't a lineage emblem with ethnic, familial or personal character, as with the reliquary figures from the Fang and other Kota (Obamba and Wumbu), rather they are instruments of personal magical power that has a decisive socio-politic value. It could be acquired, traded or even taken away by neighboring tribes.
Three Eastern Gabon Kota Figures from the Blum collection (lot 41, 44, 46)
These three reliquary figures show examples among the most expressive funerary art from the eastern Gabon Kota and those from the Congo borders. The janus figure with its missing base is a mbulu-viti of remarkable quality from the southern Kota, Obamba or Wumbu. The main face is convex with a tall forehead with a headband decorated with diamond-shaped scarifications, crossed by a plaque forming a long longitudinal ridge figuring the short nose. The face itself is heart-shaped with two hollowed orbits, marked with high-relief eyebrows, and wide stylized eyes, decorated by punctiform motifs. The squared mouth, framed by diagonals ridges engraved in the metal shows sharp teeth, giving to the effigy a severe expression. The coiffure, with a specific shape, offers a crescent finial with its extremities turned-down towards the lateral sides treated as triangles. On the backside, another face in almond-shape, concave and slightly in high relief, completely covered with brass strips (horizontal and diagonal) and with a axial plaque supporting the protruding nose. The backside condition of the hair dress certifies the great age of the figure.
The second Kota figure, is an ancestor effigy mbulu ngulu, a classical type from the Upper-Ogooue Obamba. Its stretched oval-shaped face, mainly decorated with small brass strips organized in quarters around a cross made out of two metallic plaques supporting wide almond-shaped eyes with nailed pupils and a pointed, sharp nose, is characteristic of the northern Obamba, those from the north of Franceville close to the Shamaye and other Mahongwe. The hair dress is particularly wide with its high crescent finial decorated with a series of round motives, along with wide lateral crest ending in four cylindrical pendants, a sign of social importance of the lineage who owned this figure. The hollowed diamond-shape base is ornamented with thick striped plaques.
The third figure from the Blum collection, an Obamba variant with a convex forehead is also an mbulu ngulu. With its tall scale and majestic look, this effigy combines the use of thin striped decoration, on the lower part of the face, with no mouth, and finely hammered plaques, on the sphere-quarter volume forehead and on its crest. The latter shows a crescent finial marked by an axial ridge framed by round elements, this element indicates a relationship to the lineage to which the figure belonged. The face, in this central area, is minimalist: two large eyes and a short nose, with an original asymmetrical structure of the base with its superior segments, the "shoulders", ornamented with brass.
These eight objects, fortunately and patiently gathered over the years by Rudolf and Leonore Blum, each testify in their own way, the high spirituality of the common heritage of these Bantou groups from the great Equatorial forest. From ancestor figures to prestige emblems, all express through their shapes or ornament, or even their added magical ingredients, the same desire to establish contact with spirits in the hereafter to maintain the social links of people here below, and, if possible, to support their descendants with the mysterious power of the ancestors.
Brought to you by
Chloé Beauvais
Check the condition report or get in touch for additional information about this
If you wish to view the condition report of this lot, please sign in to your account.