Mal D'Africa - La costruzione di una collezione

Approaching its final week on view at the Castello Sforzesco in Milan is Mal D'Africa - La construzione di una collezione, an exhibition showcasing the tribal art collection of the late Alessandro Passarè.  The collection comprises some 400 works from Africa, Oceania, and the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as thousands of slides and a range of manuscripts and travel diaries. Most of the objects on display in the installation are sourced from private collections and have never before been publicly exhibited.

Visit the exhibition's official website. 

Images courtesy of the Castello Sforzesco Museum, Milan

  

African and Oceanic Art at Sotheby's - June 12, 2012

Sotheby's will put an exquisite group of African and Oceanic art and artifacts before the bidders in Paris on June 12. Highlights of the sale will include a stunning black Bete mask, a Fang reliquary figure, a cephalomorphic Igala head crest, a Yoruba Oshe Shango maternity figure, and a range of other sculptural masterworks from West and Central Africa, New Ireland, and elsewhere.

View the online catalogue.

Mask  -  Bete, Côte d'Ivoire

Reliquary figure  -  Fang, Gabon

Head crest  -  Igala, Nigeria

Oshe Shango maternity figure  -  Yoruba, Nigeria

Ivory cup with figurines  -  Sapi-Portuguese, Sierra Leone

Mask  -  Gere, Côte d'Ivoire

Power figure  -  Kongo, D.R. Congo

Female figure  -  Tiv, Nigeria

Malanggan mask  -  New Ireland

Canoe prow ornament  -  Solomon Islands

Information and images courtesy of Sotheby's

The Florence Loeb Collection at Sotheby's - April 5

Daughter of the celebrated and visionary gallery-owner Pierre Loeb, the Parisian dealer of the greatest modern artists of the inter-war period, including Picasso, Miró and Giacometti, Florence Loeb inherited her father’s passion for distant cultures and his gift for forging special affinities with the most fascinating artistic personalities of his generation. Sotheby's will be offering Loeb's important collection of art and manuscripts on April 5 in Paris.

In addition to the finest ensemble of books and drawings by Antonin Artaud and a portrait of Pierre Loeb by Alberto Giacometti, the lots will include a selection of beautiful works from Africa, Oceania and the Americas.

View the online catalogue.

Tapa cloth  -  Humboldt Bay, Papua New Guinea

Byeri head  -  Fang, Gabon

Seated figure  -  Baule, Côte d'Ivoire

Kachina figure  -  Hopi, Arizona

Club  -  Solomon Islands

Bone mask  -  Eskimo, Alaska

Information and images courtesy of Sotheby's

Winter Sale at Christie's

Christie's Paris will present its winter sale of tribal art on Tuesday, December 13. Showcasing a fine assemblage of African and Oceanic antiquities, the auction will be accompanied by an adjunct sale of compelling Oceanic works from the collection of Daniel Blau.
Highlights from the main sale will include a powerful Bamana female figure; a refined Fang ngil mask; a highly elegant Luba caryatid stool; and a mesmerizing Ashanti figure with outstretched arms.

View the online catalogue at the official Christie's website.

Zemanek-Münster Tribal Arts Auction Preview: Lot 268

Face mask "ngil.” Fang, Gabon.

Wood, small residues of brown patina and kaolin, characteristic elongated face with a concave heart-shaped vaulted facial plane, eyes and mouth in narrow slits, the coiffure unusual for the mask type, consisting of a three-parted middle crest and lobes aside, typically painted with a thick layer of kaolin, backside in the chin area pierced around the rim, slightly dam. (coiffure, right eye), cracks (above all at the right corner of the mouth/chin), minor missing parts on the upper rim backside; the white painted "ngil"-face masks represent a mask tradition, extinguished since the middle of the 20th century. According insufficient is our knowledge about these masks. The typical face painting with white kaolin, reminds of the power of the ancestors and implies that the mask represents the spirit of a deceased. The mask figures wore raffia costumes. Their frightening and deterrent effect was enhanced by the fact that they mostly appeared during the night with flaring light. It's affiliation to the "ngil" society, is controversial nowadays. Essentially there are known three mask types of the Fang. Aside the "ngil" there are the so-called "ekekek" masks, appearing as demons for a secret society, as well as the multi-faced "ngontang" helmet masks. They are said to represent the ghost of the white woman, a powerful spirit, detecting and punishing sorcerers.

Height: 39 cm.

Estimate: 70,000 - 150,000 €

Skinner Auction Results - September 23, 2007

Skinner held an American Indian and Ethnographic auction in Boston this morning. Bidding was strong and many items exceeded their estimates.

The star of the auction was a Plains beaded war shirt pictured above(lot 166) estimated at $150,000-$200,000 which fetched $303,000 (includes buyer's premium).

Among the African items, some notable prices were:

Lot 64 - Fang figure $22,325 (est. $5,000-$7,000) pictured above
Lot 69 - a Lega male figure $22,325 (est. $5,000-$7,000).

Daniel
JacarandaTribal.com

Zemanek-Munster Auction results - Sept. 22, 2007

The 51st Zemanek-Munster Tribal art auction was held today in Wurzburg, Germany. Below are some noteworthy results :

Lot 114 - Ashanti comb - 3,500 EUR
Lot 155 - Senufo staff ex Horstmann - 3,000 EUR
Lot 173 - Bassa female ancestor figure ex Brill - 4,500 EUR
Lot 249 - Dan mask ex Schlag - 19,000 EUR
Lot 257 - Geure mask ex Verite - 6,500 EUR
Lot 400 - Yoruba helmet mask - 11,000 EUR
Lot 457 - Fang figure - 16,000 EUR
Lot 467 - Punu mask - 12,000 EUR
Lot 474 - Bembe ancestor figures - 12,500 EUR
Lot 541 - Songye nkisi ex Kegel-Konietzko- 10,000 EUR
Lot 609 - Herero woman's costume - 9,500 EUR. My personal favorite and way underestimated at 350 EUR. These ensembles are extremely rare and this one had two leather bonnets (pictured above), two leg ornaments and a corset-like garment of ostrich egg shells. Supposedly collected in situ in 1904 - around the time of the Herero uprising which resulted in a genocide of the Herero, inflicted on them by their German colonial masters.

Daniel
JacarandaTribal.com