CONGO (DRC), KATANGA, Luba culture - Lot 20

CONGO (DRC), KATANGA, Luba culture Standing male anthropomorphic wooden statuette with a nuanced brown patina. Heart-shaped face with half-closed eyes; hairstyle consisting of incised braids extending to the top of the skull, where they form a large, flared truncated cone-shaped receptacle, deeply hollowed out. Abdomen adorned with scarifications. Piercings are visible in the nostrils and ears, as well as an anal cavity containing residues—a feature consistent with the ritual practices of this region, where the body’s orifices and the cranial cavity serve as receptacles for magical charges. First third of the 20th century. Height: 23 cm. Note: This work is comparable to three Luba statuettes held at the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, all collected in Katanga and added to the collection before 1920. : a statue made of wood and horn, 38 cm tall, from Tanganyika, donated by the Society of Missionaries of Africa and acquired on February 19, 1912 (inv. EO.0.0.6799), whose horn, bearing a load, is still embedded in the receptacle at the top; a 24-cm statuette from the same source and acquired on the same date, featuring an abdominal cavity containing an offering (inv. EO.0.0.6800); finally, a 24-cm statuette classified as a cult object with magical powers, acquired on September 22, 1919 (inv. EO.0.0.23113). These three examples all feature the same cavity carved at the top of the skull and a similar arrangement of the arms, with dimensions very close to our own. The typology is also linked to the Kabeja-type figures with a cranial cavity, studied by François Neyt (La grande statuaire hemba du Zaïre, Louvain-la-Neuve, 1977) and compiled by Bernard de Grunne (Kabeja, la redoutable statuaire des Hemba, Brussels, 2012). The left leg is broken and has been reattached. Desiccation crack. Provenance: Collection of John van Kessel (Antwerp, 1885), secretary to Louis Franck, Minister of the Colonies (1918–1924), then passed down through the family.