Fang Female Reliquary Figure, Gabon

Reportedly collected in Gabon by Dr. Landet in 1925
Private European Collection, acquired from the descendents of the above in 1960
Sotheby's, New York, November 14, 2003, lot 69 and cover
Myron Kunin, Minneapolis, acquired at the above auction

Musée des Civilisations, Le Prieure, Saint-Just-Saint-Rambert, June 1997

The present Fang female statue from the Kunin collection is a rare example of a reliquary figure depicted in an upright standing position, and is exceptional in its scale and artistic quality.  For a related figure featuring a similarly elongated torso and identical hand position, which was collected before 1900 and previously in the Musem für Völkerkunde, Vienna, see Sotheby's, New York, November 18, 2000, lot 108.

According to Perrois (2003: 74): “This figure, collected by Dr. Landet, is stylistically related to one collected by Pastor Fernand Grébert (2003: 16 and figure 197) in 1927 from Chief Mba Baña in Nengeyen (Ndjole), a Betsi village in the Ogooué valley, now in the Museum of Ethnography, Geneva, no. MEG15232. The two figures are related in their overall gestural stance - the ancestor with standing legs for support on the reliquary lid and hands held around the abdomen - as well as more specific details - the rounded muscular body, back and thighs, careened shoulders, thick neck and scooped face with almond-shaped eyes and short nose. The brown patina, blackened and very thick in areas around the shoulders and crown of the head is also comparable. All of these characteristics suggest that the figure was already quite old at the time it was collected in 1925, probably dating to the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Moreover, the figure wears a brass torque which was only worn until the years 1900-1915, after which time only the very elderly women preserved this practice. Pastor Grébert estimated that the eyema byeri from Chief Mba Baña, dated probably to around 1870, based on the information he received that it belonged to four successive chiefs' lineages, placing it before the arrival of Europeans in the Ogooué valley.”

He continues (ibid.): “Fang reliquary guardian figures were generally affixed to their boxes by a support stick carved at the back of the hips. However, not all Fang eyema byeri are carved with this vertical stem. For other Fang reliquary guardian figures without support stems see Perrois (1992: 124-125) for a large Ntumu, Rio Muni figure in the collection of the Museo Nacional de Etnologia in Lisbon, no. AK957 and Grébert (ibid.) These male and female anthropomorphic figures have straight legs, and the feet, rather than the support stem, were inserted into the lid of the reliquary box, nsekh byeri. In most cases, the feet of these figures are fragmentary from xylophagous insect damage.”

“The use of full volumes - bulky head, massive trunk, muscular shoulders and arms, round buttocks, powerful back with a central furrow, scapulas in low relief and pendulous breasts - corresponds to the Betsi artists of the right bank of the middle Ogooué (the valleys of Abanga, Okano and Como). The mastery of the artist is best perceived in the profile of the figure with the harmony of curves in which the back of the coiffure creates a balance to the neck and the torso. The treatment of the eyes and brows in relief indicates a certain influence of the style of southern Gabon (Eshira, Galoa), suggesting that the work was created in an area with contacts in the Ogooué.”