A FINE LOWER SEPIK RIVER NECKREST

Details

A FINE LOWER SEPIK RIVER NECKREST
Supported on four feet formed of two bent bamboo canes, the rest of narrow oval form, the lower section supporting two central Janus human heads and decorated on the underside with scrolling devices, two larger human heads above each extremity carved in a typical manner with hooked nose and pierced septum, the chins connected to the lower section by two diminutive human figures with rounded shoulders and oversized heads, behind each an inverted crocodile figure; fine aged brown patina, fiber attachments with shell ornaments, shell inlaid eyes
16¾in. (42.5cm.) long; 6¾in. (17cm.) high

Provenance

Hotel Drouot, Paris. Arts Primitifs, May 6, 7, 1931, no. 140, pl.VIII
G. de Miré, Paris
Daniel Catton Rich, Chicago

Literature

Schmitz, 1969, pl.53
Wardwell, 1965, pl.75
Wardwell, 1971, pl.45, no.81

Exhibited

Paris, Galerie Pigalle, 1930, p.24, no.333
Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Art of the Sepik River, Oct. 16 - Nov. 28, 1971, no. 81

Further details

END OF SALE

Lot Essay

This unusually elaborate neckrest is one of four known from a master carver who worked during the second half of the 19th century in the Anggoram region of the Lower Sepik River. The others are in the Friede collection, New York, a private French collection (Falgayrettes, 1989, pp. 94,97), and an unknown private collection (Sotheby's New York, April 18, 1992, lot 56). All of them are of similar construction with one head at each end and one or two sets of Janus heads supporting the rest itself. The inclusion of crocodile figures on this example refers to the ancestral totem of the owner.