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Lot Essay
Sketches by the artist and manuscript notes on the reverse.
Perched on a hilltop, the village of Negare was renowned for the religious festivities and traditional dances of the Bassari people. Saint Seine records that in this ceremony, which lasted three days and three nights, the dancers are lined up according to their position in the social hierarchy. To the left, a line of old women, and then twenty-six year old men wearing panther skins and astonishing feather head-dresses. Facing them, young women who are at a marriageable age, but who are as yet without a child, and to the right, young women, who have already had a child, but who wish to attract a possible husband. For a commentary about Saint Seine's work, see Monique Gessain, Collections Bassari du Muse de l'Homme, II, Paris, Editions du Musum National d'Histoire Naturelle, 1997.
Perched on a hilltop, the village of Negare was renowned for the religious festivities and traditional dances of the Bassari people. Saint Seine records that in this ceremony, which lasted three days and three nights, the dancers are lined up according to their position in the social hierarchy. To the left, a line of old women, and then twenty-six year old men wearing panther skins and astonishing feather head-dresses. Facing them, young women who are at a marriageable age, but who are as yet without a child, and to the right, young women, who have already had a child, but who wish to attract a possible husband. For a commentary about Saint Seine's work, see Monique Gessain, Collections Bassari du Muse de l'Homme, II, Paris, Editions du Musum National d'Histoire Naturelle, 1997.