Important Standing Shrine Figure (1850 - 1890)

This is an extremely rare and beautiful antique standing shrine figure from the Kulango peoples of Côte d'Ivoire, with significant evidence of use in a shrine context. As the photos indicate, small pieces of the face have been cut and removed as part of sacred ritual process. As part of this process, these pieces were thereafter applied to other figures to empower other objects or used as ingredients in a ritual ceremony. The face thereafter becomes a memory and takes on a new life...the figure is heavily adorned with beads and shells, also illustrating the importance of the figure in its indigenous context. The figure has an abstract impressionist quality, with an offset, disarming pose, with with its head poised atop an elongated neck and arms clasped at belly.

There are comparable, but less intriguing examples of Kulango shrine figures in various important museum collections, including a female figure from the early 20th century, 11 inches (27.9 cm) currently in the collection at the Brooklyn Museum. To the left is a 16” high Kulango figure, much later, in the collection at the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

From our extensive knowledge and experience with figures of this type, it is a certainty that this object dates to the 19th century; prior to being acquired from a private Swedish collection, who bought it from Adrian Schlag, Brussels, it was in a chain of provenance that includes Maurice Ratton, France, Heinz Seeliger, Würzburg, Germany, an auction at Zemanek Munster (no. 3029523). It has been vetted as authentic by a number of committees of tribal art experts and was most recently exhibited by Mr. Schlag at BRAFA, Brussels, June 2012.

Visona, History of Art in Africa; Bacquart, "Tribal Arts of Africa"; Roy, "A Sense of Wonder"; Stepan, "World Art: Africa"