Description
RELIQUARY FIGURE kota obamba, Okonja region, Haut Ogooué, Gabon Wood, copper alloy, accidents. Mbulu Ngulu in the characteristic style of the Okonja and Otala region, where a handful of sculptors at the end of the 19th century departed from archetypal Kota forms to create works with lines as innovative as they were daring. Metal-plated on the obverse, it features a face energized by an oblique, concave-convex gaze, pierced at the pupils. The straight nose extends the metal rib that runs across the forehead. The mouth hollows out the lower part of the chin, sculpted in a second moment. A crescent at the top runs in a narrow band to the tips of the cheeks. The entire veneer is richly decorated with pointillist motifs and short double arches, most significantly on either side of the forehead rib and the lower part of the face. The reverse, left unfinished, is soberly crossed by a longitudinal rib. The lozenge-shaped base is slender and rather compact, in contrast to the pieces from southern Gabon. The stapling of the metal plates attests to a long tradition of workmanship. H. 43 cm Within a limited corpus, this work can be compared with a reliquary figure preserved at the Musée du Quai Branly - Jacques Chirac in Paris (inventory no. 71.1935.80.111), donated by André Even before 1935. PROVENANCE: collected in situ by Alexandre Dubroca (1899-1967), administrator in Gabon from 1930 to 1962; private collection, Paris, transmitted by family descent. See Chafin, p. 253, fig. 151 for an example of the same type.
187
RELIQUARY FIGURE kota obamba, Okonja region, Haut Ogooué, Gabon Wood, copper alloy, accidents. Mbulu Ngulu in the characteristic style of the Okonja and Otala region, where a handful of sculptors at the end of the 19th century departed from archetypal Kota forms to create works with lines as innovative as they were daring. Metal-plated on the obverse, it features a face energized by an oblique, concave-convex gaze, pierced at the pupils. The straight nose extends the metal rib that runs across the forehead. The mouth hollows out the lower part of the chin, sculpted in a second moment. A crescent at the top runs in a narrow band to the tips of the cheeks. The entire veneer is richly decorated with pointillist motifs and short double arches, most significantly on either side of the forehead rib and the lower part of the face. The reverse, left unfinished, is soberly crossed by a longitudinal rib. The lozenge-shaped base is slender and rather compact, in contrast to the pieces from southern Gabon. The stapling of the metal plates attests to a long tradition of workmanship. H. 43 cm Within a limited corpus, this work can be compared with a reliquary figure preserved at the Musée du Quai Branly - Jacques Chirac in Paris (inventory no. 71.1935.80.111), donated by André Even before 1935. PROVENANCE: collected in situ by Alexandre Dubroca (1899-1967), administrator in Gabon from 1930 to 1962; private collection, Paris, transmitted by family descent. See Chafin, p. 253, fig. 151 for an example of the same type.
