This large-scale Songye community power figure is extensively covered in metal sheets and studs, giving it a powerful, imposing apperance.  Contrasting with its heavy architecture and thick metal coverings is the rendering of the eyes, which are thin, almond-shaped, and slightly downturned at the outside corners.  The eyelids are carved with two delicate circumscribed ridges, the inner of which is notched to represent eyelashes.

A closely related figure was in the collection of cosmetics magnate Helena Rubinstein (see fig. 1), featuring a nearly identical treatment of the eyes, the same configuration of metal plates and tacks on the face, and metal-plated shoulders.  The sale of Rubinstein's collection at Sotheby Parke Bernet in 1966 was the first major auction of African and Oceanic Art in the United States and a landmark for the African Art market.  Interestingly, the purchaser of the Rubinstein Songye figure, lot 241 in the 1966 auction, was the young Allan Stone.  The present lot is clearly a work by the same distinctive artist.

The rich array of original attachments to the present figure incorporate refereneces to three elements: air, earth, and water.  A woven headress of bird feathers cascades from the head; the figure wears a necklace centered on a pendant of the tooth of a carnivorous mammal; and a strap covered in lizard skin is bound to the torso.