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Lot 32

Artist Unknown
(Tiwi Islands)
Untitled

Important Australian Art

11 – 12 May 2022, 19:30 AEST

Sydney

Sold for AU$5,904 inc. premium

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Artist Unknown (Tiwi Islands)

Untitled
natural earth pigments on wood
height: 76.5cm (30 1/8in).

Footnotes

PROVENANCE
Private collection, United States of America, acquired in Australia between 1967 and 1973

Face and body decoration is applied for Tiwi ceremony as a form of camouflage so that the participants cannot be recognised by the mopaditis (spirit of the dead).1 Carved figures with these designs applied, are used in burial rituals and are sometimes placed on the grave.

According to Charles Mountford's research in the late 1950s, 'the figures were made to please the spirit of the deceased and could represent 'either a son of the dead or mythical men and women of creation times....the mopaditi, on leaving its body sees the wooden figure and thinking it is either its son, or one of its old companions, stays at the grave and talks to it about old times. These wooden figures have no imunka (life essence), nevertheless the mopaditi, who is believed to be stupid and easily misled, thinks it is talking to a living person.'2

1. Charles P. Mountford, The Tiwi: Their Art, Myth and Ceremony, Phoenix House, London, 1958, p. 92
2. Ibid, p. 120

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