Margaret Plass on her visit to Herman's studio in Suffolk became so insistent that she be allowed to purchase this Fang figure that he felt compelled to expel her and forbid her to return. She was convinced that it was from the collection of Alfred Barr, the first curator of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, who had had it copied in stone and placed at the entrance of his house. The mosaic at the entrance of the Barnes Foundation outside Philadelphia has another version of this figure which Perrois illustrates as a photograph recorded in the archives of the Musée de l'Homme in 1957 but gives no size nor provenance (Perrois, L., Statuaire Fang, Paris, 1972, p.293, Pl.135). On his visit to Herman Leon Siroto questioned the authenticity of the present carving so it was tested at Kew Gardens and found to be made of a wood not grown in Gabon. Fagg concluded that it must be a copy made probably in the first quarter of the 20th century, of a now-lost figure. Two similar figures, but without the projection from the top of the head, hip formation and other details, were in the collections of Georges de Miré (Sotheby's, New York, 19 May 2000, lot 257), and Charles Ratton (Loudmer-Poulain, Paris, 19/20 December 1974, lot 164)