Memorial figure "bitumba"
Description
light-weighted wood, black, faded red and white paint, mirror-glass eyes with painted pupils, sitting with the legs tucked up and the arms folded in front of the body, the head extremely turned to the right, rising from a rectangular base with insiced ornaments, traces of insect caused damage (edge of the base), cracks (neck, base), rep. (right ear);
“bitumba” figures were placed in special grave houses in commemoration of important deceased. Some of these houses only had two or three walls, the front part of the house being open so as to reveal the polychrome figures that were displayed on a table/altar, it is on this table that gifts to the deceased were placed. Lateron the grave houses are left to disintegrate, the figure will then be put in the family home, sold or abandoned to rot away.
The figures neck is awkwardly bent at 90° to the right. This reminds of Bakongo stone figures (compare M. L. Felix, Kongo Kingdom Art, 2003, p. 277, ill. 8,5) which depict people of rank with their necks seemingly broken. These are said to refer to relatives of the leader to be, that were executed as offerings during the enthronement to show the superhuman almost devine status of the leader.
Américo Cardoso Botelho (*1918) grew up in Benguela in Angola. Early he got into contact with African works of art, and for over fifty years he was busy in collecting objects. In 1964 he founded a private Museum in the village of Azambuja in Portugal, where his extensive collection was exhibited. After his death his collection was sold at Christie’s, Paris, 4 December 2009.