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Description

TIV SKELETON FIGURE Nigeria Iron H.72cm

523 
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TIV SKELETON FIGURE Nigeria Iron H.72cm

Estimate 500 - 700 EUR

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For sale on Tuesday 25 Jun : 11:00 (IST)
dublin, Ireland
Adam's
+3531.676.0261
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Female figure ihambe. Tiv, Nigeria. H 77cm. With strong, freely carved arms and legs standing on a round slab, as well as typical scarred tattoos on the face and particularly prominent on the body; elaborate crested hairstyle in two knots. With the original invoice! The Tiv (Munshi) are one of the most important ethnic groups in north-eastern Nigeria, comprising around one million people. There are two main categories of large-scale ihambe sculptures produced by the Tiv: Post figures in an abstract style and more naturalistic figures like the present lot, which are usually female. According to François Neyt and Andrée Desirant (The Arts of the Benue to the Roots of Tradition, 1985, p. 178), the Tiv no longer produced figurative ihambe sculptures after the beginning of the 20th century. After the traditional marriage exchange, in which the son of one family married the daughter of another while his sister married the brother of his new wife, one or more of these figures were erected by the husband's family in front of the girl's mother's house, together with akombo fetishes made of sticks, clay pots and medicinal plants and associated with the fertility of the tribe and the fertility of the land. The characteristic kusa scarification marks on the upper bodies of these figures are considered an essential sign of female beauty and mark the transition from being a girl to being a woman. On the present lot, the belly carvings of one type are said to represent the okpoto fish, one of the two most widespread catfish motifs. These motifs distinguished the Tiv from the neighboring ethnic groups and also marked the different age groups. Dark brown patina, intact. Provenance: Ex Lempertz, auction 1025, Brussels January 28, 2014, lot 88.