MASSIM LIME SPATULA, PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Renaud Vanuxem, Paris
Marcia and John Friede, New York, acquired from the above in the 1990s

A Massim Figurative Lime Spatula

This spatula is of an artistically interesting design.  Normally Massim anthropomorphic spatulas consist of a figure on a platform above the blade.  In the case of squatting figures this is an attractive composition, but in the case of standing figures the design does not work so well.  Even without the platform, the design is not entirely successful, partly because the figure's legs make the spatula fragile.  The artist who invented the design of the present spatula did away with the platform and turned the blade into the legs of the figure, so producing an extremely elegant composition.  Instead of the human figure merely being the handle of a spatula, the whole spatula turns into a human being.   The present example is the oldest of them and the only one known to me in its style.

Harry Beran
Cambridge, April 2011