Maternité "phemba"

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Description

wood, yellowish-brown patina, rep.

A figure by the same artist was auctioned at Lempertz, Brussels 3 April, 1993, Lot 123 (AHDRC 0018060).

Commemorative figure of a highly regarded woman with a dead child, representing the mythical mother, controller of fecundity. This commemorative statue would have been used to honour the maternal spirit and the prosperity she brings in both funerary and fertility cults. It would also have been employed to honor a woman of importance, whose influence still determined matters of descendance.

Originally “phemba” figures were colored red with camwood paste. In Congo iconology, red is an appropriate color for transitional conditions, such as birth and death.

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Littérature comparée

Baeke, Viviane (ed.), Treasures from the Africa-Museum Tervuren, Tervuren 1995, ill. 24 ff.

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