Rapa Nui Male Statuette (moai miro), Easter Island

with inventory number "18361" painted in white on the reverse (Museum für Völkerkunde, Dresden).

Captain C. A. Pöhl, Hamburg, by 1881
Museum für Völkerkunde, Dresden (inv. no. "18361"), acquired from the above in 1881
Everett Rassiga, New York, acquired from the above through exchange on June 6, 1988
Maureen Zarember, New York, acquired from the above
Morris J. Pinto, New York, acquired from the above on October 6, 1989
Sotheby's, New York, November 22, 1998, lot 175, consigned by the above
Myron Kunin, Minneapolis, acquired at the above auction

Museum für Völkerkunde, Dresden, 1881-1988

Thor Heyerdahl, The Art of Easter Island, New York, 1975, pl. 63 b
Günter Guhr und Peter Neumann (eds.), Ethnographisches Mosaik. Aus den Sammlungen des Staatlichen Museums für Völkerkunde Dresden, Berlin, 1982, p. 233, Abb. 260
Michel and Catherine Orliac, Commentaire par Michel and Catherine Orliac, avril 2012, in Sotheby's, Paris, June 12, 2012, p. 185 (referenced, not illustrated) 

The Kunin statuette was acquired in 1881 by the Museum für Völkerkunde, Dresden, from C.A. Pöhl whose biography is closely tied to the Museum Godeffroy, a private museum dedicated to the natural history and anthropology of the "South Seas" which existed from 1861 to 1885 in the north German port city of Hamburg. Johan Cesar VI Godeffroy (1813-1885), heir of a long dynasty of ship merchants, took over the family business J. C. Godeffroy & Sons in 1845 and expanded the enterprise across Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia (Bismarck Archipelago). At its peak, J. C. Godeffroy & Sons maintained 45 stations and agencies, 27 trading vessels, as well as its own plantations in the region. Godeffroy had a strong interest in natural specimens and ethnographic artifacts and soon instructed his own captains to obtain zoological, botanical, and ethnographic material from their journeys. In 1861, he founded the Museum Godeffroy on the Alter Wandrahm Strasse in Hamburg, making it one of the leading natural history museums and commercial specimen supply houses of Europe, until it was dissolved in 1885 following the death of its founder.

One of the merchant captains working for J. C. Godeffroy & Sons and collecting specimens for the Museum Godeffroy was C.A. Pöhl. Pöhl developed a personal interest in Oceanic art. First the assistant of Godefroy Museum "Kustos" (curator) Johannes Dietrich Eduard Schmeltz (1839–1909), he took over the museum's curatorial duties in 1882. Pöhl was later tasked with the sale of the collection of the Museum Godeffroy, leading him to take over parts of the collection and establish his own natural history supply company "C. A. Pöhl, Naturalienhandlung" in Hamburg's Bernhardstrasse 1-2. However, given that the Museum für Völkerkunde, Dresden (inv. no. 18361) had obtained the Kunin figure in 1881 and thus before Pöhl assumed the curatorial position for the Museum Godeffroy, it seems save to conclude that it was from Pöhl's own personal collection. For a history of the Museum Godeffroy see Rüdiger Biehler and Richard E. Petit, Molluscan taxa in the publications of the Museum Godeffroy of Hamburg, with a discussion of the Godeffroy Sales Catalogs (1864–1884), the Journal des Museum Godeffroy (1873–1910), and a history of the museum, Auckland: Magnolia Press, 2012.

The Kunin statuette, moai miro, belongs to a group of diminutive figures which share in common body proportions of the head, torso and legs which each correspond to roughly one third of the total size. The most famous of these figures, formerly in the collection of British Sculptor Jacob Epstein, is today in the Musée Barbier-Mueller, Geneva (inv. no. "5701"). In their discussion of this figure in the catalog Africa and Oceania: Highlights from the Musée Barbier-Mueller, Catherine and Michel Orliac (in Mattet 2007: 376) note the following: "This figure moai miro belongs to a large family of small statuettes with varied poses produced by priest-sculptors [...]. The hypertrophied head symbolises its pre-eminence: a boy's head did not lose its sacredness until the age of marriage, between 17 and 20 years old. The small ear lobe confirms his age."

The finely patinated surface of the Kunin statuette combined with its early provenance  suggest significant age, allowing us to date it at least to the early 19th century, or earlier. The presence of orange pigment in the mouth is known from other Rapa Nui statues and presumably a sign of ritual use. See one figure previously in the collections of Jacop Epstein and Charles Ratton, said to have been collected in 1774 on Captain Cook's second voyage, published in MRAH (1990: 182, cat. 4); a second figure also previously in the Epstein and subsequently the Carlo Monzino Collection, sold at Sotheby's Paris, September 30, 2002, lot 31; and a third figure previously in the collection of Milton and Frieda Rosenthal, sold at Sotheby's, New York, November 14, 2008, lot 94.