Lot 131
  • 131

Songye Community Power Figure, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Estimate
150,000 - 250,000 USD
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Description

  • wood, metal, chicken feathers, waterbuck antelope
  • Height: 36 in (92 cm)
with attachments of Domestic Chicken (Gallus gallus) feathers and Common Waterbuck Antelope (Kobus ellipsiprymnus) hide.

Provenance

Presumably Henri Kamer, Paris and New York
Allan Stone, New York, acquired from the above on June 8, 1966 (invoice no. "656685")

Exhibited

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

Literature

Kevin D. Dumouchelle, Power Incarnate: Allan Stone's Collection of Sculpture from the Congo, Greenwich, Connecticut, 2011, p. 57, cat. 34 (two views)
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. 6
Jonathan Fogel, "Power Sculpture from the Congo", Tribal Arts Magazine, No. 60, Summer 2011, p. 39

Catalogue Note

This striking figure, richly adorned with magical substances (bishimba) and metal elements (bishishi), belongs to a workshop which is identifiable in several quite consistent examples which are today in Western collections: one in the collection of the artist Armand Arman (Loudmer-Poulain, December 18, 1972, lot 106); a second, previously in the collections of Gaston de Havenon and Andreas and Kathrin Lindner (Sotheby's Paris, June 8, 2007, lot 250; also published by Neyt 2004: 193, fig. 158bis); and a third previously in the Silberman Collection (Sotheby's New York, May 17, 2007, lot 150).