Siane Figural Headcrest, Eastern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea

Reportedly Louis Roisseau, Paris
Alain de Monbrison, Paris
John Giltsoff, Gerona, acquired from the above
Private Collection, Belgium, acquired from the above

Alain de Monbrison (adv.), Tribal Arts, Vol. VI, No. 3, Autumn/Winter 2000, p. 3
John Giltsoff, Giltsoff: Fine Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas, Gironda, 2005, pp. 9-10 and cover

Central triangular elements on either side cleanly broken and glued with some fill. Some surface erosion on bottom portion with stain. Surface coated in order to protect pigment from flaking. Marks, nicks, scratches, abrasions, and small chips consistent with age and use. Some small cavities of insect damage as seen in catalogue illustration. Aged patina with black, red, and yellow pigment.
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In his discussion of a closely related sculpture previously in the Masco Collection, Wardwell (1994: 86) notes: "The Siane live in the eastern highlands of New Guinea, some distance south of the Sepik River. They developed a series of complex rituals but are not known to have produced much in the way of sculpture. Notable exceptions, however, are the brightly painted gerua boards such as this one that were used in a spectacular ceremony associated with the feeding of ancestor spirits and the propagation of pigs. Each clan group performs this ceremony every three years. It is a complex event involving initiation and other coming of age celebrations and the killing of pigs. Its climax occurs at the full moon, when several thousand people gather around as many as two hundred male family heads who dance, wearing gerua strapped to their heads and carefully balanced on them. [...] At the end of the festivities, the geruas are placed in bamboo groves and allowed to decay. Two types of geruas were made: large ones, wenena gerua such as this example [and the offered lot], which are up to six feet high, and the smaller korova geruasthat are of simpler design. The large boards are of anthropomorphic form, the diamond-shaped body representing the moon, the round head symbolizing the sun, and angular arms and legs indicating the passage to be folloed. The painted patterns applied were the property of each family."

The large wenena gerua sculptures are exceedingly rare and only few examples are known. The Masco gerua, which also featured prominently in William Rubin's "Primitivism" in 20th Century Art (Rubin 1984: 44), was one of the centerpieces of the Masco Collection which Sotheby's New York sold privately in 2008 to LACMA where it is today on public view (inv. no. "M.2008.66.17"). The offered gerua from a private Belgian collection is one of the last such sculptures to remain in private hands.