FOR MALAGAN

Details

A fine New Ireland figure
for malagan
The male figure standing on flexed legs, grasping in his hands the wings of two inverted birds, one at his abdomen, the other at his back with its wings curving over his shoulders, the birds' long beaks grasping the carved clam shell base, a serpent to each side grasping in its jaws the figure's forearms, the face with finely painted ornament in white and red, the applied nose pierced and carved as a fish, carved beard below, long ears with painted diagonal bands, painted in red, black and white, the eyes with inset shell opercula
117.5cm. high

Provenance

Serge Brignoni

Literature

Gianinazzi, C. and Giordano, C. (editors), Extra-European Cultures, The Serge and Graziella Brignoni Collection, Lugano, 1989, p.257, fig. 384

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

A figure with many similar characteristics to the present was collected in 1912 by the German warship S.M.S. Seeadler; was subsequently in the Heinrich collection, Stuttgart, and is now in the Barbier-Mueller Museum, Geneva (see Gunn, M., Ritual Arts of Oceania, New Ireland, Milan, 1997, p.140, no.38). Gunn writes that although masks and figures with this type of face were previously called kepong, the people on the Tabar Islands and Medak region refer to them as ges. Ges images represent wild bush spirits which are understood to live in the jungle, up in big trees. They are sometimes described as 'real men who don't show their face'.

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