Statue reliquaire, Téké, République du Congo

Collection Abla Volta - Alain Lecomte, Paris

Lecomte et Lehuard, Art, magie et médecine en Afrique Noire, 2008, p. 52

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Provenant de la rive droite du fleuve Congo, les sculptures reliquaires dites "à charge conique en argile" (Dupré, 1998, p. 170) constituent un type rare au sein du très large corpus de la statuaire Téké. A la puissance visuelle de l'imposante charge magique bilongo - enveloppée d'un tissu - et de la profonde patine d'usage, répond la force du large visage envahi de fines scarifications linéaires, mettant en valeur la rigueur géométrique des traits et de la coiffure complexe.
Selon Raoul Lehuard (1972, p. 143), ces statues iteo incarneraient l'esprit de la fortune et du bonheur, et quelques fois l'esprit du défunt". Marie-Claude Dupré souligne qu'elles "signifiaient la présence du chef de famille". Voir Lehuard (idem, p. 209) pour une statuette très apparentée, dans la collection Marceau Rivière.