A FINE KOTA RELIQUARY FIGURE, mbulu ngulu, the face, lateral panels and crescent crest with applied brass panels, a copper band below the domed forehead, conical metal studs to the conical eyes, triangular nose, elliptical engraved mouth and lip-like forms on each lateral panel, cylindrical projections below, the crest with engraved 'eyes' flanking the central panel of engraved lozenges, further embossed ornament to the brass at the neck, brass panels to the upper part of the lenticular body, the reverse with three carved nesting chevrons, minor surface erosion to base and back, Obamba/Mindumu

Details

A FINE KOTA RELIQUARY FIGURE, mbulu ngulu, the face, lateral panels and crescent crest with applied brass panels, a copper band below the domed forehead, conical metal studs to the conical eyes, triangular nose, elliptical engraved mouth and lip-like forms on each lateral panel, cylindrical projections below, the crest with engraved 'eyes' flanking the central panel of engraved lozenges, further embossed ornament to the brass at the neck, brass panels to the upper part of the lenticular body, the reverse with three carved nesting chevrons, minor surface erosion to base and back, Obamba/Mindumu
54.5cm. high

Provenance

Paul Guillaume Dr. Gaston Durville

Lot Essay

This reliquary figure is very similar to one side of the fine Janus reliquary in the Musée Barbier-Mueller, Geneva, collected by Josef Mueller before 1939, which Louis Perrois attributes to the Obamba/Mindumu (1985, p.193, fig.13, where he mentions a similar Janus reliquary in the Musée de l'Homme). The Mueller statue has not only the grooved copper band below the forehead, but the eye forms engraved on the crest. Another reliquary, which is similar in form but without the engravings on the crest and lateral panels, in the same collection, is compared by Perrois to that on the basket or box sketched by S. de Brazza among the Ondumbo (Mindumu) of the Mpassa River (Upper Ogowe) (1985, p.74, Pl.8)

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