Songye Community Power Figure, Democratic Republic of the Congo

a paper label on the reverse printed Ratton Paris; the head decorated with feathers of the female Congo Peafowl (Afropavo congensis), strips of Common Waterbuck Antelope (Kobus ellipsiprymnus) hide, and a small pendant of Common Waterbuck Antelope (Kobus ellipsiprymnus) horn; a pouch and strap made of Common Waterbuck Antelope (Kobus ellipsiprymnus) hide attached to the waist; three collars of Common Waterbuck Antelope (Kobus ellipsiprymnus) hide around the neck, one covered with White-Throated Monitor (Varanus albigularis) skin, two covered with Ringed Water Cobra (Naja annulata) skin.

Charles Ratton, Paris
Merton D. Simpson, New York (inv. no. “4348”), acquired from the above in June 1984
Allan Stone, New York, acquired from the above on December 9, 1984

The Bruce Museum, Greenwich, Connecticut, Power Incarnate: Allan Stone's Collection of Sculpture from the Congo, May 14 - September 4, 2011

Werner Schmalenbach, Die Kunst Afrikas, Berlin, 1953, p. 122, no. 111
Werner Schmalenbach, L'Art Negre, Basel, 1953, p. 122, no. 111
Werner Schmalenbach, African Art, New York, 1954, p. 122, no. 111
Merton D. Simpson (adv.), African Arts, Vol. XVIII, No. 2, February 1985, no. 2
Christie's New York, Selections from the Allan Stone Collection, November 12, 2007, illustrated on the cover
Kevin D. Dumouchelle, Power Incarnate: Allan Stone's Collection of Sculpture from the Congo, Greenwich, Connecticut, 2011, p. 52, cat. 29
No author, "Power Incarnate: Allan Stone's Collection of Sculpture from the Congo," Tribal Art Newsletter, Vol. 2, No. 5, May 2011, p. 5, fig. 4
Jonathan Fogel, "Power Sculpture from the Congo", Tribal Arts Magazine, No. 60, Summer 2011, p. 39

The sculptor-diviner who created this monumental Songye Community Power Figure has ingeniously constructed the human body from a series of basic geometric forms.  A large, relatively naturalistically-shaped head sits atop a tall, ribbed columnar neck.  Viewed frontally, the torso making up the central mass of the figure is almost a perfect square.  The profile reveals that the cubistic arms bracket a conical trunk, with the spine represented in a V-shaped channel on the reverse, and the front centered upon an umbilical charge covered with a plate of metal.  A flanged indentation circumscribes the waist, and provides a ledge upon which a belt of attachments is fixed.  The legs are represented with extreme economy in two huge masses divided from the solid column.

The figure is embellished with an array of orignal attachments representing a variety of precious and powerful materials.  These magic "medicines", or bishimba, were chosen for their symbolic meaning; in this case the feathers of birds, the skin of venomous and non-venomous reptiles, an antelope horn, a metal bell, and pouches containing charged packets all lend their power to the ensemble.  Cavities and channels accommodate the internalization of bishimba.

The oversize head is richly adorned with symmetrically-arranged metal plates and tacks, and symmetrical clusters of tacks punctuate the torso. These metal attachments, or bishishi, are of great significance in Songye culture, not only because of the inherent preciousness of the material, but also for its association with the blacksmith, the individual who can draw metal from the earth and forge it into useful form.  It has been suggested, too, that the metal plates on Songye sculptures are also significant for their association with lightning.

The history of this magnificent figure is intertwined with two of the most important figures in the history of the connoisseurship of African Art: the German Art historian Werner Schmalenbach, and the most influential African Art dealer of the 20th century, Charles Ratton.  After World War II, as founding director of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf, Schmalenbach was charged with the task of filling the gaps left in the German national collections by the omission of modern artists who had been declared “degenerate” under Nazi rule.  Working with the most prominent modern art dealers of the day, such as Heinz Berggruen and Ernst Beyeler, Schmalenbach was immersed in classical European modernism.  As a historian and a theoretician, he was enormously influential to a generation of post-war art connoisseurs.  The strong affinity of this great Songye figure with modernist sculptural aesthetics no doubt captured Schmalenbach’s attention, and he chose it for his important publication Die Kunst Afrikas, first published in 1953.

The French dealer Charles Ratton, recently the subject of an expansive retrospective exhibition at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, was the most important tastemaker in his field.  Promoting the arts of primitive cultures to a widening audience of collectors throughout Europe and America, Ratton shaped the canon of African Art through his ability to recognize and promote great masterpieces, and his enormous influence is felt today through the many works he placed in the greatest institutional and private collections in the world.