Board "malu" ·  Papouasie-Nouvelle-Guinée, Sawos · ID: 3037927

Description

wood, black paint, red and white pigment, filigree work: drop-shaped holes forming floral motifs, small head on top, raised vertical middle ridge, two grid-like compartments in the lower third, projection in shape of a crocodile head, slightly dam., minor missing parts (crocodile snout), abrasion of paint, rep. (several vertical breakages on the left half of the board);
almost all of the sparse field information about openwork “malu” boards was not obtained from the Sawos but from their neighbours, the Iatmul, where they were collected. One description of “malu” board motifs is birds playing in the forest. However, Douglas Newton, suggests a more serious purpose. He proposes that the “malu” was originally a cult object, a “rack from which captured heads were hung, functionally akin to the Kerewa “agibe”. To him the “malu” represents a highly stylized male human figure, the archetypal cannibal, the founding father of the group, a great cultural hero and warrior.

L’objet Board “malu” avec l’ID d’objet 3037927 a fait partie de la dernière vente aux enchères 79th Tribal Art Auction dans 21 mars 2015 le Zemanek-Münster Hôtel des ventes. L’objet portant le numéro de lot 42 a atteint un prix de vente de 10 000 €.

Vous trouverez ici d’autres objets et des informations utiles sur le thème Art océanien.

Littérature comparée

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (ed.), Africa, Oceania, the Americas, and the Jolika Collection of New Guinea Art, San Francisco 2006, ill. 230