Cassandra D'Cruz
Specialist, Head of Sale
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Lot 90
Mumuye Standing Figure, Nigeria
13 November 2018, 11:00 EST
New YorkUS$7,000 - US$9,000
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Mumuye Standing Figure, Nigeria
lagana
height 17in (43.2cm)
Provenance
Private Collection, New York, acquired in the 1980s
According to Richard Fardon, 'All Mumuye statues are columnar in form, although there is a considerable degree of variation in the degree of angularity among them. Most often, Mumuye statues give the viewer an impression of two external surfaces, one of which contains the other creating a space between them. Henry Moore commented on this in 1951 in relation to the female of the Lilley figures in the British Museum, which he had sketched on its accession almost thirty years earlier: "as if the carver has managed to make [the figure] 'spatial' by the way in which he has made the arms free and yet enveloping the central form of the body."' (Central Nigeria Unmasked: Arts of the Benue River Valley, The Quick and the Dead: Versatile Wooden Figures from the Middle Benue, Fowler Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles, 2011, p. 264-5)
Of classic, highly abstract form, the legs carved in zigzag angular form; the elongated arms curving inwards, providing a sense of movement and balancing against the void between the hourglass-form torso with protuberant umbilical; the shoulders rounded, slightly sloping and supporting the cylindrical neck with a red fiber necklace and an extended laryngeal prominence harmonizing with the profile of the mouth, nose and umbilical; the head of circular form with sagittal crest, large circular ears and eyes simply defined by incised circles above three linear incised scarification on the cheeks; fine encrusted dark brown patina with kaolin highlights to the ears, eyes, cheeks and mouth.
height 17in (43.2cm)
Provenance
Private Collection, New York, acquired in the 1980s
According to Richard Fardon, 'All Mumuye statues are columnar in form, although there is a considerable degree of variation in the degree of angularity among them. Most often, Mumuye statues give the viewer an impression of two external surfaces, one of which contains the other creating a space between them. Henry Moore commented on this in 1951 in relation to the female of the Lilley figures in the British Museum, which he had sketched on its accession almost thirty years earlier: "as if the carver has managed to make [the figure] 'spatial' by the way in which he has made the arms free and yet enveloping the central form of the body."' (Central Nigeria Unmasked: Arts of the Benue River Valley, The Quick and the Dead: Versatile Wooden Figures from the Middle Benue, Fowler Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles, 2011, p. 264-5)
Of classic, highly abstract form, the legs carved in zigzag angular form; the elongated arms curving inwards, providing a sense of movement and balancing against the void between the hourglass-form torso with protuberant umbilical; the shoulders rounded, slightly sloping and supporting the cylindrical neck with a red fiber necklace and an extended laryngeal prominence harmonizing with the profile of the mouth, nose and umbilical; the head of circular form with sagittal crest, large circular ears and eyes simply defined by incised circles above three linear incised scarification on the cheeks; fine encrusted dark brown patina with kaolin highlights to the ears, eyes, cheeks and mouth.
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