Throne, around 1900
Cameroon Grassfields, Babanki
sold
EUR 2,000
Provenance
Anton Handl, Munich, GermanyA. Handl (1875-1954) began his military career in 1894. In 1903 he joined the Deutsche Schutztruppe for Cameroon, where he stayed until 1909. He was medical officer; in 1904 he took part in the war against the Anyang and accompanied various expeditions, among others in 1905, the Manenguba expedition, to the Grassfields of Western Cameroon; the same year he took part in an expedition to North Western Cameroon and to Bamenda led by Hans Glauning; finally in 1907 he joined an expedition against the Northern Jetsang-Bulu (Ebolowa). In 1911 he resigned and returned to Germany in 1914 where he reentered the active military service.
Size
H: 101,5 cm
H: 40.0 inch
Description
heavy wood, midlde brown patina, blackened in parts, disc-shaped base and seat, leopard caryatid figure, semi-circular back rest, flanked by a female, resp. male standing figure, holding items of prestige in front of their body, dam., cracks( backrest, seat, base), small missing parts, traces of abrasion;
belongs to the genre of African “contact art”, a kind of art created by native peoples in response to intensive contact with Europeans. Contact art is judged negatively by some as an acculturated art form devoid of traditional precolonial functions, while others see it as an innovative response to new visual stimuli and demonstration of peoples’ adaption to change.