Beautiful old ancestor spirit figure "blaal" · Papua New Guinea - Middle Sepik · ID: 3040149
Ingeborg de Beausacq (1910-2003) was an American photographer and explorer of german origin. She led an adventurous life, lived in Paris, Brazil, New York, she visited Thailand, India, Pakistan, Lebanon, Greece and Nepal. She spent three years in Papua New Guinea (1957-59) where she lived with the natives, sharing their life, photographed their initiation rites, wrote their history and bought art objects.
Description
wood, partly encrusted brown patina, characteristic form in the so-called “beak-style” with the long projecting beak-like mouth, incised curved ornaments, pierced ears for attachment of ornament, slightly dam.;
according to O. Reche the ancestor figures originally were advancements or supplements of the real ancestor skulls. The idea was, that not only a natural head but a whole body should be offered as abode to the soul of the deceased. According to Reche it can be assumed, that the original form of an ancestor figure consisted of a natural human skull and a wooden trunk. But this was only a transitional stage and finally was detached by such wooden whole-figure-statuettes.
The object Beautiful old ancestor spirit figure “blaal” with the object ID 3040149 was last part of the auction 82nd Tribal Art Auction at February 27, 2016 on Zemanek-Münster Auction house. The object with the lot number 64 achieved a sales price of EUR 4,000.
You can find more Figures and other popular object types on our related topic pages. You may also be interested in our page on Oceanian art.
Publications
Galerie Flak (ed.), Rites et Formes de Papouasie Nouvelle-Guinée, Paris 2009, p. 67