Standing female figure

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Description

wood, pigments, rest., base

This figure, together with a group of other figural works, was attributed by Bruno Claessens to an unknown African artist, for whom he created the pseudonym ‘Master of the T-shaped brows’.

One of these figures was collected between 1890 and 1913 by Ernest Shreiber, a magistrate in the Belgian Congo (see AHDRC 0033477). A second one was brought to Europe in 1925 by E. Lefevre, a Belgian prospector and geologist (cf. AHDRC 0033478). For two others, see AHDRC 0033475 and AHDRC 0033479. The stylistic similarities are evident.

Claessens considers it plausible that this sculptor started carving in the last decade of the 19th century, when Europeans first entered the region, and was active in the first third of the twentieth century. This is consistent with the fact that most of the figural sculpture in the Uele region was created between 1908 and 1925.

The figures are said to have been commissioned by local chiefs as gifts to win the favour of African leaders and European colonial officials.These statues thus were made for secular rather than religious purposes, and in a way are early Congolese examples of sculpture carved intentionally to be works of art. (According to B. Claessens, May 26, 2015).

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Comparing literature

DUENDE Art Projects, Bruno Claessens: "A newly identified Mangbetu sculptor: “The Master of the T-shaped brow”, May 26, 2015

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Publications

Burssens, Herman, Mangbetu, Afrikaanse hofkunst uit Belgische privé-verzamlingen, Brussels 1992, p. 61, ill. 16

AHDRC: 0033475

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