A Superb and Highly Important Songye Community Power Figure, Democratic Republic of the Congo

the male figure standing on parted legs, wearing a fibre belt with a wooden club and an antelope horn (kobus ellipsiprymnus) attached, the hands resting on the compact abdomen and framing a magical charge behind sheeted tin, with necklaces of nile lizard skin (varanus niloticus) and glass beads around the neck, surmounted by a massive head covered with sheet copper and metal tacks, with a magical charge in the mouth and another on top of the head; 'FC8607' in white pigment on the reverse bottom; exceptionally fine honey brown patina with encrustation and corrosion on metal parts.

Collected in situ by Gaston Heenen, Governor of Katanga, before 1937
Hans Röthlingshöfer, Basel, acquired from the above presumably with the assistence of Frans Olbrechts
Pierre Dartevelle, Brussels, acquired from the above
Marc Leo Felix, Brussels, acquired from the above
Fred and Jens Jahn, Munich, acquired from the above

Antwerp, Stadsfeestzaal aan de Meir, Tentoonstelling van Kongo-Kunst, December 24, 1937 - January 16, 1938
Iowa City, The University of Iowa Museum of Art, Kilengi: African Art from the Bareiss Family Collection, March 27 - May 23, 1999 (for additional venues see bibliography, Roy 1997)

Frans Olbrechts, Plastiek van Kongo, Antwerp, 1946, p. XXXVI, pl. 176
Christopher D. Roy, Kilengi: African Art from the Bareiss Family Collection, Seattle, 1997, pp. 182-183 and 363-364, fig. 105
--, Kilengi. Afrikanische Kunst aus der Sammlung Bareiss, Hanover, 1997, pp. 186-187 and 367, fig. 105
Raoul Lehuard, "Kilengi," Arts d'Afrique Noire Premiers, no. 106, Eté 1998, p. 41
Constantine Petridis (ed.), Frans M. Olbrechts: 1899 - 1958. In Search of Art in Africa, Antwerp, 2001, fig. 46
François Neyt, Songye: La redoubtable statuaire Songye d'Afrique Centrale, Anvers, 2004, p. 245, fig. 210

vertical age crack along abdomen
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In 1937 the City of Antwerp invited Frans Olbrechts, the noted African art scholar, to organise a large scale exhibition of Congolese art. The show Tentoonstelling van Kongo-Kunst gathered 1525 objects from the Belgian Congo alongside a selection of contemporary art "inspired by the Congo" as well as a significant number of historical documents attesting to Antwerp's rank as "the first African colonial market" (Petridis 2001: 173).

The show became not only a monument to Olbrechts but also a landmark for museum history. While Olbrecht's desire to present the objects as art and not ethnographical material followed the approach of other major exhibitions of African art during the 1930s, his scientific method of classification, which was based on stylistic, rather than ethnic or geographic differences, represented a significant departure from earlier attempts at classification. Olbrechts implemented this new system in both the show and in his brief essay for the exhibition catalogue, which presents many ideas later elaborated in his influential Plastiek van Kongo (1946).

The Antwerp exhibition sourced primarily from the large collection of Congolese art in Antwerp's Vleeschhuis-Museum, home to no fewer than 1600 Congolese objects which the City had acquired from Henri Pareyn in 1920. However, the display also borrowed a large number of objects from private collectors, an important change from the approach of previous exhibitions. As Olbrechts notes, this allowed to "bring to light many completely unknown objects" (Olbrechts 1946: 10). Two of these "completely unknown objects" are today venerated as great masterpieces of Songye sculpture, and both were lent by Gaston Heenen: the community power figure now in the Mestach Collection (cf. Petridis 2001: cat. 38; the figure is also seen on the left side of the black and white photograph below) and the present lot.

Born in 1880, Gaston Heenen joined the Belgian colonial government in the Congo in 1911, and over the course of the next 20 years established himself as one of the most prominent figures in the administration of the Congo. Heenen spent most of his time in the province of Katanga, and from 1922 onwards became perhaps the dominant figure in the life of the province for almost a decade, serving as Vice Governor General from May 1928 - September 1931, and from January 1932 - September 1933. Noted for following liberal policies which often ran counter to those advocated by the central administration in Léopoldville, Heenen was interested in the history and culture of Congo's native tribes, and formed an extensive collection of Congolese art during his time in Katanga, as well as writing a history of the Luba people. For further information see Antwerpsche Propagandaweken 1937, passim; Koninklijke Academie 1968: 463-470; Reefe 1984: 466-469; Roberts 1986: 480-488.

Roy (1997: 363, text to fig. 105) notes: "This is a large and impressive example of a very public nkishi power figure that once served to protect an entire community. To the wooden figure have been added elaborate strips of copper on the face, buttocks and abdomen; several collars of snakeskin and lizard hide containing magical materials; a strand of costly blue Dutch beads and iron points, which form the regalia of a chief and reflect the status of the figure; a large horn container for magical materials; and a wooden, club-shaped object which must represent a weapon. The major container for the bashimba medicine is a large recess carved in the abdomen and sealed with a copper plate. The figure is in the Kalebwe style, from the central part of the Songye country. Its size indicates that it was a community figure."

Dunja Hersak (1985: 131) has written about these strips in her study of Songye masks and figures: "The facial metal appliqué is perhaps one of the most characteristic and enigmatic features of Songye figures. Most of my informants were very vague in explaining its significance. Relating my findings to those of Plasmans, it seems that this feature parallels the concept of the nails, but it bears a specific relation to the effect of lightning. That is, the 'nkishi' can counteract and channel lightning against the source of evil or a particular aggressor. Curiously enough, the Songye stipulate that only copper must be used for these facial strips, a metal which happens to be one of the best electrical conductors."