Cassandra D'Cruz
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Lot 89
Chamba Ancestral Couple, Middle Benue River Valley, Nigeria
13 November 2018, 11:00 EST
New YorkUS$18,000 - US$22,000
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Chamba Ancestral Couple, Middle Benue River Valley, Nigeria
heights 19 3/4 and 20in (50.2cm and 50.9cm)
Provenance
Private Collection, New York
'Across the vastness and complexity of sub-Saharan Africa, and over the centuries, representations of couples,' notes Alisa LaGamma, 'have evoked a fundamental desire of the human condition--a yearning of the individual to transcend isolation and connect with an "other." Figurative pairs created by artists from the extreme reaches of the continent, ranging from the Dogon of Mali to the Sakalava of Madagascar, constitute artistic explorations into this realm of duality, that aesthetic quest at once engenders original and distinctive creations and commentaries that touch on a universally accessible theme. While these figures grow out of a mythos present in many cultures around the world, images of idealized figurative pairs often express underlying social and philosophical ideas concerning duality that are culturally specific.
The term "couple" suggests the presence of a bond that joins two elements together. Although Western social conventions have conceived of such pairing as comprising a man and a woman, the term also can be applied to two persons or forces paired together. Both a quintessential human desire to seek out unions with other human beings and the duality of the human condition have been the source of philosophical speculation since antiquity.' (Echoing Images - Couples in African Sculpture, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2004, p. 9)
Each of finely carved hard wood with powerful and strongly abstract features often seen in Chamba sculpture, including undulating limbs, shoulders hunched forward and legs apart; each figure with rounded heads bordered by large circular ears and topped by a sagittal crest; each narrow face with circular, trance-like eyes above pursed lips accented with linear scarification on each cheek; the female carved with diminutive breasts at the mid-section of the torso; each of encrusted, reddish-brown patina.
Provenance
Private Collection, New York
'Across the vastness and complexity of sub-Saharan Africa, and over the centuries, representations of couples,' notes Alisa LaGamma, 'have evoked a fundamental desire of the human condition--a yearning of the individual to transcend isolation and connect with an "other." Figurative pairs created by artists from the extreme reaches of the continent, ranging from the Dogon of Mali to the Sakalava of Madagascar, constitute artistic explorations into this realm of duality, that aesthetic quest at once engenders original and distinctive creations and commentaries that touch on a universally accessible theme. While these figures grow out of a mythos present in many cultures around the world, images of idealized figurative pairs often express underlying social and philosophical ideas concerning duality that are culturally specific.
The term "couple" suggests the presence of a bond that joins two elements together. Although Western social conventions have conceived of such pairing as comprising a man and a woman, the term also can be applied to two persons or forces paired together. Both a quintessential human desire to seek out unions with other human beings and the duality of the human condition have been the source of philosophical speculation since antiquity.' (Echoing Images - Couples in African Sculpture, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2004, p. 9)
Each of finely carved hard wood with powerful and strongly abstract features often seen in Chamba sculpture, including undulating limbs, shoulders hunched forward and legs apart; each figure with rounded heads bordered by large circular ears and topped by a sagittal crest; each narrow face with circular, trance-like eyes above pursed lips accented with linear scarification on each cheek; the female carved with diminutive breasts at the mid-section of the torso; each of encrusted, reddish-brown patina.
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