Three figurative pipe bowls · Cameroon Grassfields · ID: 3045551
Description
brass, wood, sacking, strands of polychrome glass beads, metal, additionally: two pipe bowls, terracotta with blackish coating, h: 17 cm (each), one of them rep.
Tobacco pipes are considered prestige objects in the Cameroon Grassfields, indicating the rank and title of their individual owner. Such elaborate figurative pipe bowls as the present ones, and above all those made of brass, were reserved for the Fon and the dignitaries alone.
The object Three figurative pipe bowls with the object ID 3045551 was part of the auction 92nd Tribal Art Auction on June 29, 2019. The object with the lot number 30 achieved a sales price of EUR 2,900 with an asking price of EUR 1,000.
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Comparing literature
Kahan, Leonard et .al., A Cameroon World, New York 2007, p. 109