ULI

Details

A NEW IRELAND MALE FIGURE
Uli
The concave oval face with carved and painted teeth, the eyes with inset shell operculae in black gum base, cross-hatched coiffure with central grooved projection, applied fibre beard, a horizontal band about the waist with vertical projection to the base of the chin with carved stylised 'pig money', the hands held to the sides, carved penis and false breasts, a strut at the back forked behind the neck to become the ears, the whole painted in red, white and black
96cm. high

Provenance

Reputedly from Dr. Charles Maillant, Paris

Exhibited

Neuchâtel, Musée d'Ethnographie, Art Océanien, 1970, no.1732.

Special notice

Christie's charges a Buyer's premium calculated at 20.825% of the hammer price for each lot with a value up to €90,000 (NLG 198.334). If the hammer price of a lot exceeds €90,000 then the hammer price of a lot is calculated at 20.825% of the first €90,000 plus 11.9% of any amount in excess of €90,000. Buyer's Premium is calculated on this basis for each lot individually. For each lot the Buyer's Premium is calculated as 28.125% of the hammer price up to a value of €90,000 plus 19.2% of any amount in excess of €90,000.

Lot Essay

The uli cult appears to have originated in the Lamasong and Madak linguistic areas of central New Ireland, where it spread to the coasts and to the Lelet Plateau. Regarded by many New Irelanders as a regional development of the malagan ceremonies, the art shares some characteristics found in the masks of the Tolai of New Britain. The figures were used for rites and re-used many times, displayed in groups of two or three in huts within the men's enclosure. The breasts may be indicative of a well-fed man (Krämer), a hermaphrodite (Peekel) and false breasts were at times worn by men to represent women during rites. Mike Gunn (Ritual Arts of Oceania New Ireland, Milan, 1997, p.90) goes on to explain that uli figures were images of a life force, rather than a real or imagined person. The images represent a view of the life force to which all those people belonged and from which they all came.

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