Rare headcrest "ogbom"
Description
wood, encrusted blackish brown patina, abstract form: composed of three curved elements, suggesting the torso and arms, resting on hook-shaped element, which rises from a conical base with hole pattern, incised zigzag decor, sightly dam., minor missing parts, crack (right side of the head), small traces of insect caused damage;
“ogbom” displays honoured “ala” (earth mother) and called attention to her role in human and agricultural fertility and increase. In some areas it was a harvest celebration. During part of the performance women entered the arena to dance and sing around the “ogbom” carrier. When out of use the carvings were tied in the roof of the owners hut. There the smoke of the household fire preserves them and they become blackened and thickly encrusted with soot. When wanted for the play, they are soaked in water to remove the soot and then painted with earth colours and decorated with “uri” (body painting) designs.
This type of abstract “ogbom” dancecrests is extraordinary rare, since the cult declined with the advent of Christianity at the beginning of the 20th century. In 2011 de Grunne published five of these abstract “ogbom” headdresses. According to their former owners he named them the “Webster”, “Kerchache”, “Muhlack”, “Dufour” and “Van de Velde “ogbom”. The “Webster ogbom“ was published in 1900 and can be regarded as being the oldest known example of this type of headdress. As one of “the most radical and abstract representation of the human body in all of Black Africa”, as De Grunne calls it, it inspired artists such as Picasso, Giacometti and Henri Moore. The “Muhlack ogbom” is the one most similar to the headdress on offer from the Azar Collection.
Comparing literature
Wiliam Downing Webster, Illustrated Catalogues of Ethnological Specimens, Vol. IV, Cat.No. 25, pl. 32, item 44 Bernard de Grunne, Ogbom, Brussels 2011 Lebas, Alain (ed.), Arts of Nigeria in French Private Collections, Milan 2012, ill. 58Publications
Neyt, Francois, L'Art Eket. Collection Azar, Paris 1979, fig. no 1; Bassani, Ezio, La grande scultura dell' Africa nera, Firenze 1989, ill. 64; Bassani, Ezio, Le grand héritage, Paris 1992, p. 170AHDRC: 0090283