Male/female pair of figures ·  Westneuguinea / Westpapua (Irian Jaya), Asmat · ID: 3041639

Description

wood, rich dark brown patina, traces of red and white pigment, identically designed (form of the head, facial features, body posture), rib cage and spine marked by incised lines, sexual characteristics especially accentuated, striking thin limbs splayed off the body, “hanging” feet, slightly dam., minor missing parts (nose of both figures), rep. (breakages at the right leg/thigh of both figures), heavy metal base;
regarding posture and shapes of the body reminding of the Asmats “kawe” figures, which depict special individual ancestors and which are carved in connection with a great festival celebrated on the occasion of building a new mens house. But “kawe” figures usually are much larger in size than present figures.

The object Male/female pair of figures with the object ID 3041639 was last part of the auction 85th Tribal Art Auction at March 4, 2017 on Zemanek-Münster Auction house and had the lot number 26.

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.