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LOT 2328
African Wooden Ancestor Figure
FANG TRIBE, 20TH CENTURY A.D.
18 7/8 in. (930 grams, 48 cm).
A hand-carved standing female figure with hands placed in front of the figure and wearing arm rings. [No Reserve]
ProvenanceFrom Equatorial Guinea, West Coast of Central Africa.
From an old Bristol, UK, ethnographical collection.
From the property of a late Lincolnshire, UK, gentleman.
The people that are called “Fang” in the geographic or ethnographic literature number 800,000 and constitute a vast mosaic of village communities, established in a large zone of Atlantic equatorial Africa comprising Cameroon, continental Equatorial Guinea and nearly the whole north of Gabon, on the right bank of the Ogowe River. The Fang practice a cult devoted to ancestor lineages, the bieri, whose aim is to both protect themselves from the deceased and to recruit their aid in matters of daily life. Bieri are reliquary figures placed by the Fang upon their bark boxes to personify the tribal soul, containing the skulls and skeletons of prominent deceased persons. The bieri also served for therapeutic rituals and, above all, for initiations of young males during the great so festival. The rites included consumption of a plant with stimulant properties, which induced a trance lasting for several hours, and the “resuscitation of the ancestors,” in which figures detached from the reliquaries were moved somewhat playfully from behind a raffia screen as puppets.
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AUCTIONS:
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African Wooden Fertility Figure
Lobi Tribe, 20th century A.D.Sold for (Inc. bp): £20
Carved in a standing pose with a bald head, legs slightly bent, hands resting on the abdomen and an elongated neck supporting a face with bulging eyes. 425 grams, 35.8 cm
From Burkina Faso, West Africa. From a Glasgow ethnographical collection; formed 1940s-1950s. From the property of a late Lincolnshire, UK, gentleman. -
African Wooden Fertility Figure
Baule Tribe, early-mid 20th century A.D.Sold for (Inc. bp): £26
A carved standing figure with an elaborate hairstyle tied back with a band; scarification to the face. 904 grams, 35 cm
From Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa. From a Glasgow ethnographical collection; formed 1940s-1950s. From the property of a late Lincolnshire, UK, gentleman.
Baule statues are usually standing on a base with legs slightly bent, with their hands resting on their abdomen in a gesture of peace, and their elongated necks supporting a face with typically raised scarification and bulging eyes. -
African Wooden Fertility Figure
Yoruba Tribe, mid 20th century A.D.Sold for (Inc. bp): £39
Carved in the round standing male figures with tall hatched headdress extending to the rear, hands placed either side of his distended abdomen, knees flexed, standing on a plano-convex base. 1.1 kg, 48.5 cm
From South West Nigeria, West Africa. From the property of a late Lincolnshire, UK, gentleman.
The Yoruba are the largest nation in Africa with an art-producing tradition. Their figures, more often of Shango (also spelled Sango and Sagoe), deity of thunder and lightning are carved from wood and kept in shrines.
