Songye, Democratic Republic of the Congo, 19th century
Wood, plant fiber, cordage
Height 5 inches (12.7 cm)
Provenance: Field collected by Hans Himmelheber, Heidelberg, Germany; Josef Müller, Solothurn, Switzerland; Christie's London, 20 March 1979, lot 144; Virginia private collection
The head is carved out of proportion to the body, with a high domed cranium above a face whose lidded eyes, broad nose, and small open mouth are gathered into the lower half. Coils of twisted cordage are bound around the torso and the upper arms in tight overlapping rounds, holding the arms against the trunk and covering most of it. The lower half of the figure sits inside a woven fiber bundle drawn up around the hips and finished with a fringe of loose raffia, and the wood above it carries a dark encrusted surface built up by repeated application rather than cut into the carving.
Figures of this class, nkishi, were carved by a sculptor and then activated by a ritual specialist who charged them with medicines held in cavities and in attached bundles, so the object as it stands is the work of two hands rather than one. The small scale places this among the personal or family figures rather than the large communal mankishi kept on behalf of a whole village. The bundle at the base remains wrapped and closed, and the fiber and raffia are the elements most often lost from figures of this kind.
Hans Himmelheber, 1908 to 2003, was a German ethnographer who worked in Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia, Alaska, and the Congo from the 1930s onward, and was among the first Western researchers to record African carvers by name and to treat sculpture as individual authorship rather than anonymous tradition. He published widely on Dan, Baule, and Congo material, and his field collections are held in institutions including the Museum Rietberg in Zurich. Josef Müller, 1887 to 1977, was a Swiss collector in Solothurn who began acquiring African, Oceanic, and ancient art in the 1920s, and whose holdings became the foundation of the Barbier Mueller collection in Geneva. The figure passed through Christie's London in March 1979 before entering a Virginia private collection.
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Songye, Democratic Republic of the Congo, 19th century
Wood, plant fiber, cordage
Height 5 inches (12.7 cm)
Provenance: Field collected by Hans Himmelheber, Heidelberg, Germany; Josef Müller, Solothurn, Switzerland; Christie's London, 20 March 1979, lot 144; Virginia private collection
The head is carved out of proportion to the body, with a high domed cranium above a face whose lidded eyes, broad nose, and small open mouth are gathered into the lower half. Coils of twisted cordage are bound around the torso and the upper arms in tight overlapping rounds, holding the arms against the trunk and covering most of it. The lower half of the figure sits inside a woven fiber bundle drawn up around the hips and finished with a fringe of loose raffia, and the wood above it carries a dark encrusted surface built up by repeated application rather than cut into the carving.
Figures of this class, nkishi, were carved by a sculptor and then activated by a ritual specialist who charged them with medicines held in cavities and in attached bundles, so the object as it stands is the work of two hands rather than one. The small scale places this among the personal or family figures rather than the large communal mankishi kept on behalf of a whole village. The bundle at the base remains wrapped and closed, and the fiber and raffia are the elements most often lost from figures of this kind.
Hans Himmelheber, 1908 to 2003, was a German ethnographer who worked in Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia, Alaska, and the Congo from the 1930s onward, and was among the first Western researchers to record African carvers by name and to treat sculpture as individual authorship rather than anonymous tradition. He published widely on Dan, Baule, and Congo material, and his field collections are held in institutions including the Museum Rietberg in Zurich. Josef Müller, 1887 to 1977, was a Swiss collector in Solothurn who began acquiring African, Oceanic, and ancient art in the 1920s, and whose holdings became the foundation of the Barbier Mueller collection in Geneva. The figure passed through Christie's London in March 1979 before entering a Virginia private collection.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
