Standing female figure
Papua New Guinea - Sepik
sold
EUR 7,000
Provenance
Kevin Conru, London, Great Britain (“acquired in a small auction in England, prior to which it had laid undisturbed in a trunk for over a hundred years”)Size
H: 57 cm
H: 22.4 inch
Description
wood, dyed with red pigment, accents with white pigment, accentuation of female sex characteristics, carved with nose ornament, drilled ear holes, slightly dam., minor missing parts, crack, rep. (bowl), abrasion of paint, base;
probably from the coastal area between the Sepik and Ramu rivers. This early figure relates to an example collected in 1884 on the Austrian naval corvette “Aurora” (now in the Museum für Völkerkunde, Wien).
It is told, that grieving widowers carved female figurines, depicting their spouse in the typical female pose of a birth giving woman. Apart from that female figures represent clan founders or creator beings and were kept in the men or ritual houses.