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Description

A Lobi Figure, "bateba"

Figure, "bateba" Lobi, Burkina Faso Mit Sockel / with base Wood. H 62 cm. Provenance: - Center des Sciences Humaines, Abidjan. - 1969: Jean-Louis Rinsoz (1932-1971), Vevey. - Heirs of Jean-Louis Rinsoz, French-speaking Switzerland. Exhibited: Africa 69, Arts de la Côte-d'Ivoire et de l'Afrique occidentale. Vevey (1969). bateba shrine figures of the Lobi combined a human-like appearance with superhuman qualities. They protected their owners from inaccessible areas such as evil thoughts and witchcraft. Dr. Stephan Herkenhoff, Lobi collector and proven expert on the subject, wrote about the Lobi in 2006 in "Anonyme Schnitzer der Lobi" (Herkenhoff, Stephan and Petra / Katsouros, Floros and Sigrid. Hanover: Ethnographika Hanover): "Originally the Lobi come from Ghana. Around 1770 they moved partly to Burkina Faso and about 100 years later also to the Ivory Coast. Today, around 180,000 Lobi live in this three-country corner. In 1898, the French colonial rulers united the Lobi and their neighboring tribes such as Birifor, Dagara, Teguessie (Thuna), Pougouli and Gan under the term "Cercle du Lobi" for administrative reasons. It is this community that we refer to today when we talk about the "Art of the Lobi". A special feature of African art is that the carvers usually remain anonymous. As a rule, it is tribal art, which must follow a fixed canon, and only in rare cases individual creations. The carvers are therefore rarely known by name. Collectors of African art primarily ask themselves which ethnic group an object comes from. The name of the individual artist is not so important, in contrast to what is customary in the field of Western art. For most tribes, there is relatively little variation in the works of art. The appearance of sculptures or masks varied only slightly from one generation of carvers to the next. In this respect, Lobi art is a real exception. There is a great iconographic diversity here, both in terms of the size of the statues and in terms of the different details (mouth, nose, eyes, ears, hairstyles, arm position, depiction of the chest area, navel, sex, legs, hands, feet, etc.). One reason for this lies in the structure of the tribe. It is not a centrally managed community, but an acephalous society. The Lobi therefore have no kings or cities, only clan chiefs and loose groupings of fortress-like dwellings (called sukalas). As a result, there was little exchange of information over long distances. As a result, many local styles and sub-styles were able to develop within the Lobi style convention. It is also not easy to assign an object to a specific place of origin. This is due to the fact that Lobi families abandon their homes after 2-3 generations because of depleted fields and move to a new area where they find unused land. This is why you get different answers when you ask locals in Africa where a statue comes from (verbal information from Thomas Waigel). Another special feature in the creation of Lobi statues is the fact that, in principle, any man can become a carver." Further reading: Herkenhoff, Stephan and Petra (2013). Carvers of the Lobi. Osnabrück: Stephan Herkenhoff.

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A Lobi Figure, "bateba"

Estimate 2 000 - 3 000 CHF
Starting price 1 000 CHF

* Not including buyer’s premium.
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Sale fees: 26 %
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For sale on Saturday 29 Jun : 15:00 (CEST)
basel, Switzerland
Hammer Auktionen AG
+41444000220
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