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| Image | Sale date | Auction house | Location | Sale name | Lot No. | Estimate | Price Sold | Condition | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
May 14, 2019 | Bonhams | New York | AFRICAN AND OCEANIC ART | 34 | $****** - ****** | Kanak Ancestral Post Figure, New Caledonia |
other
88.9 cm (35 in)
English Private Collection
Acquired from the above by the present owner
Cf. Newton, Douglas (Ed.), Arts of the South Seas - Island Southeast Asia, Melanesia, Polynesia, Micronesia - The Collections of the Museé Barbier-Mueller, Prestel, New York, 1999, fig. 11, (Inv. 4701).
According to Roger Boulay (Ibid., p. 304), "In the past, these human figures crowning posts originally driven into the ground were sometimes mistaken for ridgepole finials. A similar piece, in the Museé d'Aquitaine, Bordeaux, was described by its collector (1877) as being located near the entrance door to a chief's house."
Unlike the larger, more common outdoor village post figures, this example probably functioned as a funerary figure which was kept more as a personal object inside the hut, hence the addition of the hair decoration.
Carved in hardwood, round in section with a male figure of traditional rounded proportions of Kanak figural sculptures, the arms atypically hang outwards from the sides of the torso, each with large hands; a broad chest, umbilicus, genitals and knee caps clearly defined, the rounded head with classic Kanak-style rounded and flared nostrils, the top of the head inset with plugs of human hair (a rare occurrence in Kanak figures); fine dark, reddish brown patina.
