Chokwe Male Figure of Chibinda Ilunga, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Reportedly from a private colonial collection in Porto, Portugal, by circa 1900
Michel Huguenin, Paris, by 1961
William F. Kaiser, Berkeley, by 1967
Helen and Robert Kuhn, Los Angeles
Sotheby's, New York, The Kuhn Collection of African Art, November 20, 1991, lot 114
Myron Kunin, Minneapolis, acquired at the above auction

Robert H. Lowie Museum of Anthropology, University of California at Berkeley, African Arts, April 6 - October 22, 1967
M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, The Bay Area Collects: Art from Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, July 3 - October 3, 1982

Michel Huguenin, "Tshibinda Ilunga Katele. Symbole de l'ame violente d'une tribu guerriere: Les Tshokwes" (Galerie Majestic invitation card), Paris, 1961
William R. Bascom, African Arts: An Exhibition at the Robert H. Lowie Museum of Anthropology of the University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, 1967, p. 161
William R. Bascom, African Art in Cultural Perspective: An Introduction, New York, 1973, p. 151, no. 109
Marie-Louise Bastin, "Statuettes Tshokwe du heros civilatuer 'Tshibinda ilunga'", Arts d'Afrique Noire, supplement to Vol. XIX, October 1976, pp. 88-89, pl. XVII
Marie-Louise Bastin, La sculpture Tshokwe, Meudon, 1982, p. 138, fig. 77
Thomas K. Seligman and Kathleen Berrin, The Bay Area Collects: Art from Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, San Francisco, 1982, p. 56, cat. 49
Warren M. Robbins and Nancy I. Nooter, African Art in American Collections. Survey 1989, Washington and London, 1989, p. 390, fig. 993
Jean-Baptiste Bacquart, The Tribal Arts of Africa, New York and London, 1998, p. 188, fig. 2

Good condition for an object of this type and age. Vertical age crack to top center of coiffure, with a wedge shaped piece glued back in place, and extending down into back back with wood fill. Age crack to front of torso extending down between legs with black pigment. Proper left arm with horizontal native metal pin repair at shoulder and the crack with surface fill. Fronts of both feet broken with native metal bracket repairs. Separately-carved muzzle of the rifle lost. Loss to vertical element in proper left side of coiffure. Marks, nicks, scratches, abrasions, and small chips consistent with age and use. Fine aged, rubbed, glossy dark brown patina with encrustation in places. Permanently fixed to modern wood base.
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According to Lagamma (2002: 57): “The Chokwe once lived in the interior of what is today Angola, a forested area where elephants abounded, and were renowned as the best hunters in the region.  With the increase in demand for ivory in the early nineteenth century, the Chokwe acquired great wealth through the elephant hunt.” And at another place LaGamma (op. cit.: 55-56) adds: “Chokwe leaders rose to unprecedented heights of economic and political power in the nineteenth century. Beginning in the 1830s, Portuguese traders along the coast at Luanda abandoned the slave trade in favor of ivory and wax. […] By the late 1880s the Chokwe had displaced the weakened Lunda Empire as the premier power in the region, and their leaders assumed positions of greater influence.  During this period Chokwe chiefs commissioned sculptures that reflected this newfound status. The chiefs were depicted as heirs to the culture hero Chibinda Ilunga, who introduced innovative and enlightened governance to the Chokwe, Lunda, and other peoples of Ruwund heritage.”

Petrides (2008: 93) notes: “One of the most magnificent genres of African figure sculpture represents the Chokwe culture hero Chibinda Ilunga, a Luba prince who founded the Mwata Yamvo dynasty in the Luunda region.  The subject of these carvings, of which about a dozen examples have been inventoried, was disclosed by an old diviner to Marie-Louise Bastin during her field work in 1956.  Chibinda Ilunga figures are generally believed to celebrate the chief as hunter and, by extension, as warrior (Bastin 1982: 137). [... Such figures] portray a dignified and aristocratic individual.”

LaGamma (op. cit.: 57) continues: “In Chokwe culture the archetypal hunter, or yaga, is the mythical hero Chibinda Ilunga. As a result of this strong identification with Chibinda’s vocation, and the appeal of his legacy as a civilizing agent, Chokwe chiefs commissioned depictions of him as a princely hunter."