Power half figure · D. R. Congo, Tetela · ID: 3033953
Description
wood, encrusted dark brown patina, cylindrical corpus with indicated arms, provided with various paraphernalia: animal horn on the parting, bunches of sticks, two strings of glass beads, one of them with attached claws, slightly dam., traces of insect caused damage, paint rubbed off, on base;
the Tetela live in central Zaire, artistically they can be divided in the Northern and the Southern Tetela, the first group influenced by the Mongo, living in the rain forrest, and the second group influenced by the Songe, living in Savannah area. Present figure shows the influence of the “nkisi” figures of the Songe.
The object Power half figure with the object ID 3033953 was last part of the auction 71st tribal art auction at November 24, 2012 on Zemanek-Münster Auction house. The object with the lot number 450 achieved a sales price of EUR 2,400.
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Comparing literature
Felix, Marc L., 100 Peoples of Zaire and their Sculpture, Brüssel 1987, p. 174