Cassandra D'Cruz
Specialist, Head of Sale
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Lot 102
Makonde Standing Female Figure, Tanzania
13 November 2018, 11:00 EST
New YorkUS$40,000 - US$60,000
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Makonde Standing Female Figure, Tanzania
height 20 3/4in (52.7cm)
Provenance
Dr. and Mrs. Robert Kuhn, Los Angeles
Sotheby's, New York, November 20, 1991, Lot 122
Hélène and Philippe Leloup, Paris
Private American Collection
Published
Bacquart, Jean-Baptiste, The Tribal Arts of Africa, London, Thames & Hudson, 1998, p. 200, no. 6
Stylistically typical of Makonde figural sculpture collected between 1900-1935 (see Yale-Van Rijn Archive no. 0014289), the figure is believed to serve an apotropaic function. Carved in very light wood with overall rounded proportions in an animistic pose with her legs slightly bent at the knees and the arms at her sides, bent at the elbows and with clenched fingers. She gazes slightly right with trance-like, coffee-bean eyes. Her sloping forehead is counterbalanced by heavy jowls; the sharply receding chin juxtaposed with her projecting upper lip caused by a plug; a bamboo plug inserted into her lower narrow lip; a broad nose with sharply defined nostrils intersected with a raised linear scarification that extends down both cheeks; her oversized, rounded ears with plugs around the edges; her body decorated with raised chevron and zigzag scarification on the face, chest and abdomen; fine aged light brown patina.
Provenance
Dr. and Mrs. Robert Kuhn, Los Angeles
Sotheby's, New York, November 20, 1991, Lot 122
Hélène and Philippe Leloup, Paris
Private American Collection
Published
Bacquart, Jean-Baptiste, The Tribal Arts of Africa, London, Thames & Hudson, 1998, p. 200, no. 6
Stylistically typical of Makonde figural sculpture collected between 1900-1935 (see Yale-Van Rijn Archive no. 0014289), the figure is believed to serve an apotropaic function. Carved in very light wood with overall rounded proportions in an animistic pose with her legs slightly bent at the knees and the arms at her sides, bent at the elbows and with clenched fingers. She gazes slightly right with trance-like, coffee-bean eyes. Her sloping forehead is counterbalanced by heavy jowls; the sharply receding chin juxtaposed with her projecting upper lip caused by a plug; a bamboo plug inserted into her lower narrow lip; a broad nose with sharply defined nostrils intersected with a raised linear scarification that extends down both cheeks; her oversized, rounded ears with plugs around the edges; her body decorated with raised chevron and zigzag scarification on the face, chest and abdomen; fine aged light brown patina.
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